The Thief Hero
by MrTouchnGo
Summary: After a hundred years, the Thief Hero finally reappears... and the fight against the Black Mage begins in earnest.   This was started before Phantom was announced, so no, this is not about Phantom.
1. Prologue

Hiya. A couple of things:

I kind of completely stopped updating this for a while, but I've decided that I might as well keep this version up to date and reviews are still a great way to improve my own writing skills, so why not? Anyways, here's the updated version of my story.

I am fully aware that the actual Thief hero and lolpirate replacement hero are out now, I just feel that this is something I enjoy so I'll continue it. Many people who follow this story on Basil wanted me to continue as well, so why not?

Anyways, finally, a request. **Please leave reviews.** If they contain constructive criticism, that's pretty awesome, because that helps me improve my writing. If they don't, well, that's still awesome, because it means people care enough to leave a couple of words. So yeah.

Hope you enjoy.

* * *

><p><strong>Prologue: Years and years ago...<strong>

_Ten years ago, this man... no one had even heard of him_, he thought. He was the youngest Hero, the last one to join. He specialized in quick movement and stealth, and had sought out the other Heroes a year after the Black Mage's conquest had begun. He remembered that day clearly.  
><em>"You... You're not even sixteen!" Aran had said, despite his display of skill.<em>  
><em>Mercedes glanced at the Straw Target Dummy twenty feet away. He seemed to have barely moved, yet somehow he had left her side, sliced the Dummy into six pieces, and returned all in the space of one second... an achievement made even more impressive by the fact that he had a blindfold on. He took it off as Mercedes frowned at Aran. "Age is no indicator of power," she pointed out. "You know this very well."<em>  
><em>Freud stayed silent. <em>  
><em>In the end, they took him under their wings.<em>

He glanced at Leafre, or what was left of it, anyway. The entire forest, once a lush paradise full of multicolored birds and scampering creatures, was burning. Screams echoed through the night as the Black Mage's minions tore through the peaceful creatures that Halflings had coexisted with for centuries. He vaguely heard Athena Pierce's voice as she conducted the evacuation of Leafre and ordered the last remaining inhabitants into the only ship that had not yet set off. Then Aran's voice, mingling with Athena's; they were conversing worriedly about something. Apparently a child had been left behind in the forest.

As Aran left in search of it, he kept on the lookout for monsters, quickly killing any that dared to appear. He had to make sure the ship got out of this hellish war zone safely with the civilians.

Aran returned, and he breathed a sigh of relief. The lost child was clinging to Aran's back. Athena pleaded with Aran to get on the ship with her, but he knew her efforts were futile. None of the Heroes that had stayed behind to fight would be leaving tonight. He stayed still, blending in with his surroundings. He had an unobstructed vantage point, and yet no one could see him.

Athena Pierce's ship finally disembarked. Aran, now alone, searched around the dock for him, so he raised his hand about two inches. Aran noticed the movement immediately, and beckoned. Aran blinked, and when he opened his eyes, he was by his side.

"The rendezvous point."

Aran nodded. They set off to meet up with the others, and then to put an end to the war for once and for all.

_The Black Mage cackled when his spell to freeze Afrien hit home. The great dragon king crashed to the ground, shaking the very earth. Frost spider-webbed across his gleaming scales terrifyingly quickly; Afrien, knocked unconscious by the curse, could do little to resist its influence. Freud gasped as the Spirit Pact was broken and his mind torn from Afrien's; after so many years together, the two, human and dragon, had become one, a single entity, their thoughts and actions the same. An egg and several potions tumbled out of a bag that Afrien was carrying on his back; the potions shattered against the ground, but the thick-shelled egg stayed intact. "Freud, the egg! Get it out, and Afrien's legacy will live on! We'll cover your escape!" Aran yelled._  
><em>Freud, hands shaking as if he were dying, picked up the egg. He stumbled out. While the remaining Heroes were distracted, the Black Mage quickly cast a succession of spells and froze them where they stood.<em>  
><em>"No," he breathed, as each one of his comrades fell.<em>  
><em>The Black Mage laughed, and the ground rumbled. "Don't worry, you needn't grieve much longer... You will soon join them in their misery..."<em>  
><em>Tears filled his eyes and rage filled his heart. A smoldering village... a baby crawling out of the ruins. An old man... soup... a steel-tipped fan... a flickering fire... a pair of red eyes... a bloodied scythe... a familiar cackle...<em>  
><em>This man had taken all that Luctor had: his friends, his family... his love. It was time for him to strike back. Time for him to take the Black Mage's dearest possession: his life. "You don't remember who I am, do you?" he asked the Black Mage. He jumped from side to side, avoiding the Black Mage's dark bolts of energy.<em>  
><em>"I know all I need to know about you. I know you are the last remaining so-called Hero. I know that if you are destroyed, any resistance against me shall lose every seed of hope. I know that as soon as you are crushed, the world will be mine."<em>  
><em>The ground rumbled again. He jumped to the ceiling of the cave, and launched himself off of it towards the Black Mage, weapon outstretched.<em>  
><em>"You will never remember. But I will," he said. Chains of fire, ice, and lightning sprouted from the ground and caught the Black Mage's arms. The Black Mage roared. He stretched out an arm and swatted him out of the air, straight through the ceiling of the cave half a second before the chains swarmed and completely covered him.<em>


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Present time**

_Omega Sector. Base of Ludibrium's Eos Tower._

"Meteorite is projected to strike the surface of the ocean in ten minutes and counting, sir. Fire directional missiles?"

Commander Moss stood with his back straight and his arms crossed. A scowl on his face and a curious absence of hair longer than half a centimeter on his head, he nodded at the soldier in front of the computer screen. "Make sure it's perfect."

"Yes, sir." Everything was automated; the system would calculate the exact angle and time the missile would have to strike at to direct the meteorite into the Omega Sector containment capsule. All he had to do was press the button, which he promptly did.

The alarm system was automatically activated; sirens wailed and an prerecorded voice repeated the same message over and over. "Residents of Omega Sector, please direct yourself to your assigned Strike bunker. All visitors, please go to Strike bunker numbers 15 and 16. The meteorite will be directed to the Meteorite Containment Capsule, so there will be no debris. However, there may be an earthquake in case of an electromagnet failure, and it is advised that you enter your assigned Strike bunker immediately."

Approximately ten minutes later, as predicted by the computers, the meteor descended over Omega Sector. There was no earthquake, and no damage was done. After all, the men stationed in Omega Sector had been through more actual meteor strikes than drills for them.

Commander Moss looked at his screen. "Excellent work once again, boys. The containment capsule is undamaged." Everyone in the bunker cheered. "Now get on your HAZMAT suits and get in there."

The Search and Evaluate team entered the air lock, watching through the transparent blast doors the meteorite being lowered and cut by lasers as their armored suits were disinfected. Liquid nitrogen was sprinkled into the chamber to cool down the pieces, hissing violently as the droplets hit the meteorite fragments. Finally, the team entered the containment capsule.

Steaming rock fragments lay on the bottom of the capsule, cooled down to about 90 degrees Fahrenheit. A relatively spherical piece, seven feet across, lay in the center of the capsule. The team leader motioned for the others to surround it. Cautiously, he walked towards it and outstretched a hand. "51, laser," he said over the radio.

Soldier 51, pointing his laser, which was connected with wires to a gigantic battery on his back, approached the large piece of space rock. "Permission, sir?"

"Wish granted. Do a thermal scan and cut ahead," the leader replied.

Soldier 51 activated his gun's thermal scan, pausing a few moments as it scanned the interior of the rock. "Sir, there's something... Send scan to team displays," he enunciated clearly into his helmet. "Confirm command." The image of the scan opened up on everyone's helmet displays as well as the Commander's monitor.

The thermal scan showed a warm, body-resembling patch. The team leader ordered soldier 51 to cut off the rock around the patch, and then called in another team with a sterilized Levitator to transport the rock to the lab.

"Doctor, what do you make of it?" Moss frowned. He didn't want to meet another alien species; he already had enough of them to deal with as it was.

"Scans indicate that the body, if that is what it is, is humanoid in shape, with a head, torso, arms, and legs. There also seem to be digits, but it is a bit unclear."

"Let's get it over with. Crack the thing open," Moss commanded.

Doctor Forstan inserted paper-thin electromagnets into the rock, side by side. The plan was to activate them at the same time, and they would have such a repelling force that the rock would crack open like a nut.

"Sir, Commander Moss. The body... looks human. It's breathing. It seems male. I suggest we put it, or him, on life support immediately."

"Go ahead."

**Day 4**

"Doctor, can we wake it?"

Forstan frowned. It had been three days since the discovery of the man – _creature_, he corrected himself – and it seemed very much alive. However, he didn't know how long it would take this alien species to recover from a descent in the Maple World atmosphere. "I think we should try, sir. If it does awake, do not agitate it. We don't know anything about it... Commander... It may be of a peaceful race."

"Very well."

Forstan removed the shirt from the alien and tied its body down with several leather straps, taking care to leave the chest and head free. He then reached under the bed and brought out two curved metal restraints that went over the alien's shoulders, but did not meet. They would do to hold it down. A nurse brought over two cords with suction cups on the end of them and attached them to the alien's chest.

"Administer a minor shock," the Forstan ordered a nurse.

The nurse turned the dial on the machine to which the cords were connected to all the way to the left, then twisted it the tiniest amount to the right and pressed the red button. The body strapped on the bed jolted a little, otherwise, there was no sign of consciousness.

"Double the voltage."

The nurse twisted the dial a little more to the right, then pressed the button again. The body jolted violently, and the eyes opened. They were a brilliant white.

"Forstan...!"

"Commander, with all due respect, shut up," the doctor replied in a low voice. He looked at the alien on the bed. It looked confused; harmless even. "Do you speak English?" he asked, making his voice as soothing as possible. _It's all about the tone, the actual words don't matter, since it won't understand, _he thought to himself.

"Yes."

Forstan froze in shock. Moss widened his eyes.

"Are you human?" the commander asked, with all the bluntness that could be expected from a military man.

"Yes," he said again.

"Who... Who are you?" Forstan furiously scribbled down notes.

"I am Luctor, one of the five Heroes, and I sealed away the Black Mage even as he flung me into outer space," he said. And then he passed out.

Forstan and Moss stared at each other, dumbfounded. The nurses and guards stood there uncertainly. Everyone knew the story of the five Heroes, passed on by word of mouth after the Great War a hundred years ago.

A single man who named himself the Black Mage had somehow learned Dark Magic, and with the support of his followers, had conquered his hometown of Edelstein. Not satisfied, he attempted to conquer the entirety of the Maple World. Five brave men and women - one Pirate, one Thief, one Warrior, one Magician, and one Archer - had trained so much they had surpassed the masters of their trade. The most skilled fighters of their time, they had stood up to the Black Mage and sealed him away at a great cost – none of them would see the light of day for another hundred years, if at all. Luctor was one such hero – the hero of Thieves.

"Luctor? Could he actually be Luctor...?" Commander Moss finally asked.

The doctor sat down and massaged his temples in silence. He sighed and adjusted his glasses before responding. "It is possible, I suppose. Athena Pierce had been evacuating Leafre the day of the final battle. She had reported seeing a white fireball fly out of the cave they had fought in right before it collapsed. And also..." he trailed off and looked out the window. A small yellow bird flew past, chirping along happily. The sky was a light blue with small white clouds scattered across it.

Moss followed Forstan's gaze and then looked back at him. "What?"

He snapped his eyes away from the window and looked back at the Commander. "Luctor used a white steel-framed fan as his weapon. When he was removed from the meteorite, clenched in his hand was such a fan."

**Day 10**

_This is taken from Doctor Forstan's video log._

The subject... Luctor, that is... woke today. We allowed him to sleep after our first conversation, and he awoke by himself. He sustained a massive amount of tissue damage from his ascent into space, his orbiting as a meteor – let's not forget the radioactivity up there – and, of course, his final descent into Omega Sector. He's very addled right now. We're going through physical therapy currently, and he's very, very weak. He has not been able to walk and is barely even able to talk. It's been years since the final battle, and it seems that he was in space all this time. Commander Moss has passed the knowledge of Luctor on directly to Grendel the Really Old – we must keep his return a secret. Anyone that has seen Luctor or may remotely be related to the discovery of him has been sworn into secrecy. Moss tells me that Grendel will notify the other job masters, and will hopefully get into contact with Evan, Aran, or Mercedes. I will record more as I receive more information. The time is 2253.

**Day 11**

1036

"He's awake."

"Thank you, nurse."

"I will leave you to it, Doctor Forstan."

"Very well."

"Doctor... Forstan...?" Luctor asked haltingly with trouble forming the words. He sat up very slowly in his bed, inching his head up the wall like a slug an inch at a time.

Forstan observed his movements, taking down notes on his clear glass tablet, his words projected directly on its surface. After a couple of minutes, when Luctor was finally fully sitting up, Forstan dotted his last _i_ and placed his pen into the pen-holder on the side of his tablet.

"Yes, that is my name. Luctor... your body is in a very fragile state. Your descent into the atmosphere and the quick deceleration by the electromagnets... well, it's a wonder you were not quite literally flattened by the stress. Hero or not, you're still human, and your body may be more enhanced than ours, but you've taken enough punishment in your time as a meteor to kill a thousand men. I'll do the best I can to help you regain your strength. Take it easy on your body," he added.

"Thank... you, Doctor."

"Your facial muscles seem to be working, although they are a little tender. Can you try smiling?"

He grimaced weakly. "It... hurts... quite a bit."

"Are you hungry?" Doctor Forstan scribbled down more notes on his tablet.

"No."

"You shouldn't be. You have a mini-IV, which is just something that injects essential nutrients directly into your bloodstream. So it's like eating, except not eating. It's advanced, so it will activate itself if it detects anything is wrong with the nutrient balance in your blood." Doctor Forstan ceased writing and gave his notepad to a nurse, who took it away.

"You... seem to know... about the Heroes... how long... has it been?" Luctor panted, exhausted at just stringing the words together to form a single coherent sentence.

"It's been about a hundred years. Aran and Mercedes are alive. The Spirit Pact has been renewed." The Spirit Pact was what had allowed Freud, the Magician hero, to gain powers beyond the reach of normal men – he and Afrien, the king of dragons, had used a series of binding spells to intertwine their very souls.

"The... Spirit Pact..? I saw... Afrien... get frozen..." Luctor felt his eyes get moist, and although he did not hold back his tears, they failed to come out; his body simply did not have the energy to produce tears. He was in basically a vegetative state. Tired by the talking, Luctor let his body relax and slid back into a lying-down position with his head on the pillow. _So it's been a hundred years, eh? I used to be young. I still look young... probably. But I'm actually a hundred twenty years old now. Gaaaah, I definitely feel a hundred twenty._

"As far as we know, Freud made it to Victoria Island, but none of the major cities. He left the egg someplace. A boy named Evan found it." He paused. "Luctor... I have something to tell you. The Black Mage's minions, despite our best efforts... broke the Black Mage free. He's already completely changed the face of Victoria Island to his liking. We have need of the five Heroes more than ever before..."

_The Black Mage? So he broke free... _Luctor would have laughed if he wasn't in so much pain. _Everything I did, everything Aran did, everything EVERYONE did... and he still broke free. It's been a hundred years... and a bunch of hundred year old people are still fighting against each other..._

"You seem really tired. Get some rest; I'll talk to you again tomorrow. If you need anything, hit the button on the left side of your bed."

_Everything is so confusing now..._


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Day 12**

_The Black Mage cackled when his spell to freeze Afrien hit home. The great dragon king crashed to the ground, shaking the very earth. Frost spider-webbed across his gleaming scales terrifyingly quickly; Afrien, knocked unconscious by the curse, could do little to resist its influence. Freud gasped as the Spirit Pact was broken and his mind torn from Afrien's; after so many years together, the two, human and dragon, had become one, a single entity, their thoughts and actions the same. An egg and several potions tumbled out of a bag that Afrien was carrying on his back; the potions shattered against the ground, but the thick-shelled egg stayed intact. "Freud, the egg! Get it out, and Afrien's legacy will live on! We'll cover your escape!" Aran yelled._  
><em>Freud, hands shaking as if he were dying, picked up the egg. He stumbled out. While the remaining Heroes were distracted, the Black Mage quickly cast a succession of spells and froze them where they stood.<em>  
><em>"No," he breathed, as each one of his comrades fell.<em>  
><em>The Black Mage laughed, and the ground rumbled. "Don't worry, you needn't grieve much longer... You will soon join them in their misery..."<em>  
><em>Tears filled his eyes and rage filled his heart. A smoldering village... a baby crawling out of the ruins. An old man... soup... a steel-tipped fan... a flickering fire... a pair of red eyes... a bloodied scythe... a familiar cackle...<em>  
><em>This man had taken all that Luctor had: his friends, his family... his love. It was time for him to strike back. Time for him to take the Black Mage's dearest possession: his life. "You don't remember who I am, do you?" he asked the Black Mage. He jumped from side to side, avoiding the Black Mage's dark bolts of energy.<em>  
><em>"I know all I need to know about you. I know you are the last remaining so-called Hero. I know that if you are destroyed, any resistance against me shall lose every seed of hope. I know that as soon as you are crushed, the world will be mine."<em>  
><em>The ground rumbled again. He jumped to the ceiling of the cave, and launched himself off of it towards the Black Mage, weapon outstretched.<em>  
><em>"You will never remember. But I will," he said. Chains of fire, ice, and lightning sprouted from the ground and caught the Black Mage's arms. The Black Mage roared. He stretched out an arm and swatted him out of the air, straight through the ceiling of the cave half a second before the chains swarmed and completely covered him.<em>  
><em>Unbearable pain. That was all he felt. Only the pain of smashing through three feet of solid rock with nothing except his clothes to protect him. But there was something else... something nagging...<em>  
><em>He could feel the Black Mage's final spell sapping at his will. A spell to forget, to rob him of his memories. He fought against it, pushed it away, but it found a single pinhole in his defenses and sunk its teeth in.<em>  
><em>Who am I? Why... why am I flying? Why do I have this fan?<em>  
><em>And then he felt an intolerable amount of energy coursing through his entire body, and the spell was expelled from his mind. "NO!" he screamed. The air snatched his words away from him. "I WON'T LET YOU TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME."<em>  
><em>I am Luctor, one of the five Heroes. My weapon is a steel-tipped fan. I am a master of stealth, a true Thief. I was the end of the Black Mage. I WILL REMEMBER.<em>

His sleep dissolved, and Luctor woke up.

Oh, he remembered all right. Maybe it would have been better if he didn't remember – didn't remember his past, what he was capable of doing, what he had actually done. All that just made him feel all the more miserable, helpless, and weak.

_Helpless._ Long ago, Luctor had pledged to fight for the cause of those without fight in them, to help the helpless. And yet, here he was, embodiment of those very qualities. He was a master of movement, and yet he could not move. It was pathetic, really. It felt like he was imprisoned, but he knew he wasn't being kept prisoner by anyone; his body was its own prison. He needed a way to strengthen it, and quickly. If what Forstan said was true, and the Black Mage was free to rampage as he pleased, then he, as one of the five Heroes, or one of the four that remained, had a responsibility to protect the Maple world. Again.

_But how? My mind is weak, and my body weaker. I can't tap into any energy. I can't eat, I'm fed by this little pouch of water strapped to my arm._

"Luctor! You're awake!" Doctor Forstan walked into the room with a surprised look on his face.

_Very convincing. It's not as if you're not monitoring my condition every minute of the day._ "Have you been in contact with any of the other Heroes?"

"Unfortunately not. I will tell you when we have had an opportunity to talk to them." He took a cloth out of his pocket and dabbed at his forehead.

_He looks troubled... not himself. His vein... sweat... even his hand is shaking a little... what is that in his pocket? What is that smell...? It seems so familiar..._

"How am I doing?"

"Your body is recovering marvelously. Your facial muscles are working much better – you're able to talk without problem now." He smiled. His mouth twitched violently, and he turned away. "I have a shot to administer. It should speed up your recovery."

He walked out, coming back inside the room a minute later carrying a black suitcase. He opened it and took out a needle.

"This may hurt a little bit."

_This aura... the color of the serum... no..._

He summoned all his strength and threw his arm across his body. He hit the syringe with the back of his hand, and it flew across the room, where it broke against the wall. The liquid splattered across the wall and fizzled violently. A putrid smell filled the room.

_I knew it. Drake poison._

"Oh, for heaven's sakes. That would have sped up your recovery tenfold."

"I'm not stupid. I noticed your smell as soon as you walked into the room."_ The button. I have to press it._ Luctor moved his left arm slowly off the bed, trying to feel out the button.

"So, I guess the game is over. No more use hiding, eh?" Doctor Forstan exploded and a cloud of darkness rapidly expanded from where he had been standing. When it dissipated, there was a man in a blue robe smiling, and the doctor lay on the floor, breathing but otherwise lifeless. The man's black hair was cut so short it was rather reminiscent of a strangely colored kiwi. His smile didn't quite reach his eyes; they seemed to contain the cold cruelty of a shark. Over the left side of the man's chest was woven an intricate golden tiger.

"Francis." _Finally. The button. I have to stall for time._

He frowned and shook his head. "I was trapped under that rock for quite a while, Luctor. I am very upset at you."

"I should have killed you."

"Of course you should have. But you were so preoccupied..."

"Was it you who released the Black Mage?"

Francis wagged his finger. "Stop stalling for time. I am going to kill you, and that is inevitable. I wish I could have used the poison... that way it would have been slow and painful, and no one would even know I'd been here. But since you insisted on being annoying and thwarting that... I suppose I will have to bloody my hands." He reached into his robe and pulled out a 6-inch long black dagger while walking to the side of the bed.

_No..._

"You are the Hero who sealed the Black Mage... and yet you are helpless. You cannot even move. The last Hero to fall, this time the first. To the Black Mage!" He stabbed downwards at Luctor's heart.

Luctor was pushed off his bed and skidded against the floor until his back slammed into the wall. _Ow... what the heck?_

He lifted his head. Doctor Forstan lay across the bed with a knife in his back. He looked Luctor in the eye. "I'm... sorry." His eyes lost focus and his head slumped forward.

Francis looked down at his bloody hands. He sighed exasperatedly. "You really are a lot of trouble, Luctor. I was going to use his body to get out safely. He sacrificed himself for no reason; you're dead either way."

He jumped towards Luctor, his dripping knife outstretched for the kill. A bang rang out as he was at the apex of his jump, and Francis was thrown against against the wall. The window behind him cracked from the impact, blood spraying the cracked glass. Commander Moss and five other soldiers stood in the doorway, all their guns aiming at Francis.

"Finish him."

Francis turned towards Luctor. He threw a puppet at one of the soldiers and jumped out the window as bullets whistled past him.

The puppet was absorbed into the soldier's skin. He aimed his gun at Luctor.

"He's poss-"

Commander Moss took out a knife and stabbed the soldier in the back of his neck. He collapsed.

"Omega Sector is under attack. We have to get out. Our defenses won't hold for long." Moss took a red band-aid out of his pocket and put it on Luctor's arm. "This will give you some strength for one hour. You have to get up to the warper on the top floor. We're on the bottom. Take the stairs. The first thing the attackers did was cut the power lines – we're running on backup electricity, and we have no idea how long it will last. Activate the warper and you will end up in Nautilus Harbor. Aran is waiting for you there."

Luctor could feel his strength coursing back into his limbs just seconds after the band-aid touched his arm. He raised his hand and clenched it into a fist. He turned it around, looking at it closely. He stood up.

"And you?"

"I will stay behind. I have to destroy the warper to prevent them from going through Omega to Nautilus. I will coordinate the defense as well. Omega may go down, but we're taking as many of them with us as possible. Here are your fan and the clothes you were in when we found you." Commander Moss handed Luctor his neatly folded dark blue clothes and his white steel-tipped fan.

"Thank you, Commander." Luctor looked Commander Moss in the eye and saluted him. Moss saluted back before leaving with his men.

Luctor quickly changed into his old and more comfortable clothes, feeling uncomfortable with two dead men in the room and blood flowing freely on the floor. He snapped open his fan and closed it again, getting a feel for his old weapon, then ran out into the hallway and began to ascend the tower.

As Luctor ran up the stairs, he began to think more clearly. _I can help. I have my strength back... perhaps I can turn the tide of the battle and keep Omega from being taken over._

A huge explosion ripped through the reinforced metal wall ahead. Shrapnel flew everywhere and a large piece came very close to shredding Luctor's arm. As the smoke cleared, Luctor saw the very same smiling face he had just seen minutes earlier. In front of Francis stood five Omega Sector soldiers. Their faces were blank and a dark shadow from nowhere covered their eyes. The tiger on Francis' robe glinted in the light.

"Francis." He tightened his grip on the fan in his right hand.

"Ah, Luctor!" Francis rubbed his chin. "We meet again..."

_I'm no longer a weak, defenseless vegetable. I can fight back now. _With a flick of his wrist, Luctor's fan opened. The intricate golden tiger design glinted. He held it behind his back. _After a hundred years... can I still do this?_

Francis noticed the movement. "No need to be so rude... If you surrender, I shall make your end painless – just a quick stab in the heart or perhaps a slit of the throat. No need for all this... unpleasantness." His broad grin didn't waver.

_Silent, agile, and cunning, the tiger stalks its prey._

"Oh, you know what?" Francis looked at the soldiers. "I'm getting tired of this banter. Kill him."

The soldiers raised their guns and fired. Luctor shifted his body and avoided the first bullet by a millimeter. He slashed diagonally towards the left and then to the right, slicing a bullet in half and deflecting three others towards Francis, then jumped to avoid another spray of bullets.

Francis waved his hand and the bullets went around him. He rolled his eyes and yawned exaggeratedly. "Really, Luctor? That was so predictable."

_The doe raises its head, inquisitive, then bends down to eat again._

Luctor jumped again. As the soldiers raised their guns to aim at Luctor, he focused some energy and expelled it from the palm of his outstretched hand, shooting himself backwards, away from the bullets. As he landed, he almost lost his footing and fell down the stairs. He regained his balance and glared at Francis.

Francis smirked back. The soldiers aimed at Luctor and opened fire.

_The tiger pounces and kills the doe in a single swipe._

Luctor moved forward instantly. He instinctively took note of each bullet and its path, and how to avoid it while still advancing. In a flash, Luctor had disappeared. The soldiers stopped firing.

_Enraged, the mother of the doe charges and kicks the tiger as hard as it can._

Francis looked behind him, then glared at the soldiers. "Why did you stop shooting? He got away, thanks to you."

"We're out of bullets."

"Oh... that's too bad. Seems like I'm out of thugs, what a coincidence," Francis replied. The soldier raised an eyebrow even as Francis slew him and his comrades with his knife. He searched around the hallway with his eyes, investigating every shadow. "Now... where are you?" he muttered.

_The tiger, bruised and its dignity hurt, roars savagely and mauls the deer._

"Don't you remember that promise I made to you all those years ago? And the promise you made back to me?" Luctor's voice projected out of nowhere, echoing in the hallways.

"Stop playing these games, Luctor. You know that I was always the better one at mind tricks..."

"Don't you remember, Francis...?" Luctor's voice sounded distant and sad.

Francis snarled. "You promised me you would always have my..." his eyes widened. He whispered the last word. "...back..." He whirled around just in time to see a flash of white and the spray of blood from the slit in his neck before collapsing.

_An old man shoots at the tiger, chasing it away. He steals its two kills._

Luctor looked down at Francis' body and took a deep breath. Every line in his face was etched with sorrow. "And you promised you would always have mine."

"_The tiger is a brave animal, children. Every man would do well if they had the same qualities as a tiger."_

As Luctor walked away, the golden tiger woven into Francis' blue robes blazed brightly, and then his body and clothes disappeared, leaving nothing behind but a small doll.

Thoughts swirled through Luctor's head while he ran up the remainder of the tower. _This isn't how I wanted it to end, Francis._ Memories of their conversations... memories of their friendship, their bond...

Luctor, preoccupied, nearly smashed into the wall that marked the top of the tower; the staircase did not continue. He entered the room to his right cautiously, keeping a lookout for any potential enemies.

To his left was the warper, a loudly humming cylinder that stood about eight feet tall. The monitors on the side of it showed that it was powered up and ready to go.

"Luctor!"

Luctor whipped around towards the voice and snapped open his fan.

"D-don't kill me, dude! The commander stationed me here to operate the warper!"

The man looked like an engineer. He wasn't holding a weapon, and was dressed in blue overalls, blue hat, blue gloves and brown boots.

_He's not possessed._ Luctor relaxed and closed his fan. "Sorry about that. So how does this work?"

"Just step into the chamber and I'll send you on your way. After you go, I'll be able to turn on the defense system and maybe we'll have a chance against them... that puppeteer can't control machines, hopefully."

"Puppeteer? Francis is dead. I just killed him on my way up." Luctor looked at the engineer and raised an eyebrow.

The engineer shrugged. "Then who's this?" He put up live video feed of the battle on one of the monitors. He rotated the camera and zoomed in on a figure in a blue robe.

A chill went through his spine as he remembered the Battle of the Tower. Luctor swore. "He did it again. He sent some soldiers and an illusion after me!"

"Whatever, dude. Just get in and I can turn on the defense system and shoot the hell out of that guy. He literally fights like fifty men."

"But..."

"Trust me. Just get inside. You're more important than all of Omega Sector. The whole tower is rigged with explosives – as soon as someone gets up here, I'm blowing it all up."

Luctor reluctantly stepped inside the chamber. The engineer cheerfully waved at him before pressing the button.

The warper reverberated, closing the door and sending pulses of light up and down the sides. Luctor's eyes were filled with bright light, and he felt a tingling sensation.

A moment later, the door to the chamber opened and Luctor, blinded, fell out. Irritated, he said, "Great. I'm blind and it didn't work. Thanks a lot."

A firm hand gripped Luctor's shoulder. A warm hand. A familiar grip. It pulled him up and Luctor stood uncertainly, still not able to see.

"Aran?"

"Close your eyes and count to three, then open them. Your eyes will adjust," a voice said.

Luctor did so and opened his eyes. This time, they focused on a woman in the front of him. She wore a red and black robe and a pirate hat. She smiled at him, a mischievous smile. The hand was still on his shoulder, helping him stay upright. He turned his head to the right and saw him.

White hair, brown eyes. Chocolate skin to match his rich voice. Aran.

"It's good to see you, Luctor." He flashed his teeth at him.

"Same with you, Aran. It's been a while."

Aran smiled. "Only a hundred years."

Luctor suddenly felt exhausted. His grip on his fan slackened, and it fell to the ground. The polished wooden floorboards seemed to be getting awfully close.

Aran grabbed Luctor's arm. "Whoa there, fella. What's goin on with you?"

"The patch... temporary strength..." Luctor panted.

Aran inspected the red band-aid on Luctor's arm. "Ah. OK. Put your arm around me and we'll take the taxi to Ellinia. Grendel wants to see you." He nodded at the woman. "Kyrin, please show the way. Your ship is like a maze."

Kyrin sighed and lead the way outside. "You'd think a hundred year old warrior would be a bit wiser..."

Sunlight hit Luctor's eyes for the first time in a hundred years. The warmth penetrated his tired bones. "Wow, I feel a lot better under the sun."

"Mr Antisocial, you haven't been in the sun for a hundred years. Of course it feels good. Thanks, Kyrin," he added.

"Glad to help. Time to get my defenses up. Never know when that guy will hit." Kyrin walked back inside the Nautilus.

"Yo, hail a taxi for us, won't you?" Aran said to no one in particular.

The pole arm Aran was carrying on his back glowed and smoke billowed out of the top of it. "Yes, Master," a glowing man floated on top of the smoke. "Will that be all, Master?"

"Hey, Maha. Haven't seen you in a long time..." Luctor grinned weakly.

Maha pouted. "At least you remember me. My closest friend here" – he poked Aran in his spiky hair – "didn't even know who I was for the longest time."

"Just shut up and hail a taxi already." Aran's cheeks turned red.

Maha rolled his eyes. "Aran's still a little slow with memory. Grendel told us that he'd teleport us once we sent him a message, remember?"

"Oh... yeah..."

He shook his head. "Go see a psychologist, man." He grabbed a stone off the ground and held open his hand with the stone in the middle. With a bright flash of light, it was gone.

On an impulse, Luctor closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was in a huge library with his arm still around Aran.

"You're welcome, Aran," Maha snorted before retreating back inside the pole arm.

Luctor looked at Aran. "Grendel? Who's Grendel?"

Aran looked uncomfortable. "Uhm... Grendel... he... uh..."

"... took command of the magicians during the Battle of Leafre when Hanse, my mentor, fell from a fatal arrow wound," a deep voice resounded. Grendel floated in through a doorway from the next room.

"Um. Yes. That would be Grendel. That guy floating in."

Luctor studied Grendel. All his clothes were light gray: a robe gilded with gold; soft-looking shoes; a long, flowing cape; and a tall wizard hat. His eyes, made smaller by his drooping eyelids, twinkled with a soft and sorrowful shine, as if they contained a dying star. His neatly groomed long white hair and beard hung down to his shoulders. Overall, he looked like the old sage that was all words and no action.

"You've changed."

Grendel smiled sadly. "Time did not stop for all of us, Luctor."

"Do you always float like that or what?"

"My bones are frail. I was never strong physically; I have always relied on my mental capabilities." He waved his hand and a cot appeared on the ground. "Aran, put him on the cot."

Aran gently lifted Luctor off his feet and put him onto the cot.

"The people from Omega Sector told me you are extremely weak. That is to be expected. It seems fortunate, however, that your memory was not affected." Aran blushed. "I will attempt to heal you. It should make it so you can enjoy the power you had with the little science gadget there." He gestured towards the red band-aid. "However, it will only heal you partially. You will still have to exercise in order to fully recuperate."

"I understand."

"Then I shall begin."


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Day 12**

"Well, how do you feel?" Aran asked.

"I feel young again, as I should. Grendel... Grendel, thank you."

"Whatever I can do do hinder the Black Mage. Athena Pierce has prepared a training ground for the Heroes. One of you still has not been found, and you are not all ready for battle." Grendel floated back towards the doorway he had come in from.

"Grendel. Hanse... he was a good man."

He didn't turn around. "I know," he said quietly before floating away.

"Hanse?" Aran looked at Luctor quizzically.

"Hanse was the greatest magician of the time, right after Freud."

"Ah."

"During the Battle of Leafre, Hanse commanded the forces of the magicians. You were there... I guess you forgot. It was... not going well."

"_Luctor, we must retreat. The enemy is pounding us too hard! Thieves were not meant to take such punishment!"_  
>"<em>Wait, Dark One. Have patience. We may win this battle yet."<em>  
>"<em>How? We have no reinforcements coming. The warriors cannot push forward. The magicians are pinned against a cliff. The pirates cannot defend the beachfront. The archers..." the Dark Lord laughed bitterly. "The archers separated from the formation and have been surrounded."<em>  
><em>Luctor pointed at the horizon. "The sun is coming up. Wait a little longer."<em>  
>"<em>The sun will not help, Luctor. It will be in our eyes."<em>

"We had something planned for sunrise. But minutes before it could go into action, disaster struck."

"_We must retreat!" the Dark Lord insisted._  
>"<em>No. Trust me. Wait until sunrise."<em>  
><em>A horn sounded. The horn reserved for the announcement of a death of a commander. Luctor suddenly felt cold. <em>Please... no..._ "Flagmen! Who is it?" the Dark Lord barked._  
>"<em>Hanse has been struck down, sir. A stray arrow struck him in the lung. It was cursed; there is no chance of using magic to heal him."<em>  
>No... not Hanse... <em>Luctor felt like screaming. "Our plan has failed," he informed the Dark Lord. "Give the order to retreat. We must save the archers."<em>

"We had lost all hope. The plan was our only chance to turn the fight around. The magicians were to... well..."

_One of the flagmen ran up to Luctor. "Look!" he pointed at the magicians' formation. The magicians had recovered from the disarray that followed their commander's death and were regrouping, slowly pushing forward._  
>"<em>Wait!" he yelled to the Dark Lord. "Don't retreat yet!"<em>  
><em>The Dark Lord yelled at the generals. "Not yet!" He ran back to Luctor's side. "We're still losing. We will continue losing. We must retreat!"<em>  
><em>The first ray of sunshine hit Luctor's eyes. The long battle during the night had tired him. He had retreated to the commander's viewpoint on the hill. The sunlight reinvigorated him. He suddenly had the energy to fight back. "No. We will not lose." He turned to the flagmen. "Signal the magicians. Tell them to do it now."<em>  
><em>The flagmen signaled the magicians. One of them said to Luctor, "They say they're not in position yet. They will need to push forward further."<em>  
><em>The Dark Lord yelled at Luctor hysterically. "IN POSITION FOR WHAT?! WHY AREN'T YOU TELLING ME EVERYTHING?"<em>  
><em>Luctor didn't turn to him. "I am a thief, Dark One. Keeping secrets is my job."<em>  
><em>The sunlight shone on the soldiers of the Maple World. Suddenly, a bright light emanated from the magician formation. An enormous shield shimmered in front of their front lines. It extended to the thief formation as well as the warriors' and the pirates'. A separate shield surrounded the archer section.<em>  
><em>The Dark Lord laughed incredulously. "A shield? A giant shield? THIS is your great plan? It will deplete the magicians' energy and we will be destroyed!"<em>  
>"<em>No, Dark One. It is not a shield. Merely a bending of light. An illusion. On this side, we see a slight shimmering. On the enemies' side, the sunlight is magnified and reflected towards them. They will not be able to see a thing."<em>

"And then everything started going well for us. The spell worked miraculously. Our soldiers pushed right past the boundaries of the spell, but it didn't matter. We weren't facing in that direction. The archer formation joined together with everyone else. The beach was defended. We pushed forward rapidly. We would have won, too..."

_Another horn sounded. But it was unfamiliar. A messenger ran up. "Not our horn, sir. It is from the enemies."_  
><em>Over the hill approached enemy reinforcements. Thousands strong. More than twice the amount of the current enemies.<em>  
>"<em>That... is not good." The Dark Lord, amazed by the surge of the soldiers in the aftermath of the spell, now said once again, "We have to retreat."<em>

"And so we lost the Battle of Leafre. We couldn't handle so many enemies. We retreated and evacuated Leafre. And then we, the Heroes, went after the head of the snake..."

"I remember now... I was fighting the entire night with the warriors... The enemies seemed endless..."

The silence was deafening. Neither of them wanted to say that the same thing could happen again.

"Let's get to Henesys."

"Yeah."

To his delight, Luctor was able to walk normally again, without the support of Aran. The two Heroes made their way out of Grendel's grand library.

Luctor took a look around Ellinia. "So this used to be Ellin Forest..."

Aran nodded. "It's changed a lot."

"No kidding."

They hailed a taxi to Henesys, neither of them speaking for the forty-minute ride; they were both too occupied with admiring the scenery through the windows of the vehicle.

"So here we are. Henesys." Luctor looked around. It seemed so peaceful. Bright sunlight, a few clouds here and there, roads paved with white stones. The town was alive. People ran back and forth, going about their business. Children played on the streets, supervised by old women singing as if they were starring in a musical.

"You know, Evan was born near here."

"Evan? Is he..."

"Freud's successor. He has somehow formed a Spirit Pact with a dragon... Mir. He didn't use the spells Freud did. I don't even know how he did it."

"How is he?"

"He was a farm boy when he found Mir. Their bond is strong... Evan was the first human Mir saw. Mir was the one who revealed Evan's untapped prowess with magic. Before Mir, Evan had no idea how to use magic."

"So the bond must run very deep. Perhaps even deeper than Freud's?"

"Yes. Evan is very powerful. And he's only 17."

"Mercedes?"

Aran snorted. "Ran off with some purple warrior. Demon Slayer. Doesn't deserve his title. Part of the resistance or something."

Luctor laughed. "Does he know how old she is?"

"Even _we_ don't know how old she is. Elves don't show age. She could be a thousand for all we know."

"Ah, Aran. So nice of you to come see us in Henesys. I would have thought you were busy with all that being a Hero nonsense," an old man sneered at the pair of Heroes.

"Chief Stan. I am currently on official business, and we are to see Athena Pierce immediately. Where is she?"

Chief Stan stroked his beard. "Well, if you could get my money back from my bratty little son..."

"Chief Stan, we're not here to go on a little quest for you. Please just direct us to Athena Pierce." Aran raised his voice a little.

"Well, Athena Pierce... she's in the target range. Are you sure..."

"Yes, I'm sure I don't want to help you," Aran said firmly. As they walked off towards the target range, Luctor heard Chief Stan muttering about his son under his breath.

Luctor raised an eyebrow at Aran.

Aran shrugged. "Chief Stan is a little... crazy. Just ignore him."

There was a blur, and then Luctor's arm appeared in front of Aran's face. Clenched in his fist was a silver arrow.

"Oops," a woman in front of them lowered her bow. She glared at Aran, turned around, and walked off into a hollowed-out tree, silver hair gracefully flowing behind her as vapor trails a comet.

"Funny. Didn't look like an accident to me. The targets were... um. Behind her." Luctor smirked at Aran. They continued walking to the tree.

"She's still angry at me. Amazing..."

"I'm not surprised. She begged you to leave. But you didn't, and the result? You were thought dead for a hundred years."

"Well, thank you for not helping at all."

Luctor shrugged. "What am I supposed to do? Sort out your own girl troubles. I'm just here for her training ground."

Luctor looked inside the doorway at Athena, who was leaning back in her chair with her eyes closed as if she had not just shot an arrow at Aran, her long silver hair hanging from her shoulders. She was entirely clothed in leather armor; nothing metal except the tips of the arrows in her quiver could be seen. Her massive bow was set next to the table in front of her, and a small knife hung from her belt.

Luctor knocked on the door.

"Come in." She raised her head and looked at Luctor, locking her warm and mild hazel eyes with his bright white ones. "It's been a while, Luctor. You don't look any different."

"I feel different."

Athena tilted her head. "Didn't Grendel do his bit of hocus pocus yet?"

"Yes, but he said he couldn't heal me completely. I have to exercise and train myself to get the rest of my strength back."

"Of course. You're welcome to use the dojo. However, it's getting late. I suggest you rest. You can stay in my guest room upstairs." She stood up and started walking up the staircase, hair flying before a nonexistent wind.

"Thank you."

"What about me?" Aran asked to the back of Athena's head.

"What about you? I have no more rooms. Sleep outside." Athena disappeared up the stairs.

"I know you have four rooms up there, and only two are being used!" he yelled after her. A door slammed in response.

Luctor laughed silently at his friend.

**Day 13**

_A clear night. The crescent moon. Twinkling stars. A soft breeze in El Nath._  
><em>A man and a woman, neither older than thirty, sit at a table. They watch their fireplace, the crackling flames within it, and the pig roasting on the spit above the hearth. A small baby crawls on the floor, chasing after a wooden sphere. The couple gaze lovingly at the baby and go back to tending to their meal.<em>  
><em>The village drums rhythmically beat out the signal that indicates a convoy of the Royal Guard has arrived. The man in the house, as well as almost all the men in the village, hurries outside to honor the king's men. The woman picks up the baby and wraps him in a blanket. They both watch anxiously from the window of their small house.<em>  
><em>The villagers learn what the convoy wants: they had just come from putting down some criminals and wish to stay at the local inn for the night. They are pointed to the inn and bar, where the innkeeper gladly serves them a round of free drinks. He asks that they buy drinks if they wish to have more.<em>  
><em>The members of the Guard agree to his request. Throughout the night, they party and feast, celebrating their crushing of the Red Band of the El Nath Woods. They drink incessantly, and four of them even pass out drunken at their seats. Several sing drinking songs, entreating the village to their horrible drunken singing voices.<em>  
><em>Later in the night, one of the Guard, inebriated beyond belief, approaches the chef and demands deer. The chef replies that the deer have migrated to warmer regions, and there is no deer meat in storage. Angered and intoxicated, the soldier draws his sword and threatens the chefs.<em>  
><em>The village peacekeepers are called by frightened cooks. Two of them enter, bows drawn. The soldier laughs and, fooled by his liquor into believing he is invincible, charges. He is shot and killed immediately. The rest of the Royal Guard hear the commotion and rush in as disorganized and unsteady on their feet as a crowd of babies.<em>  
><em>They demand payment for the death of one of their members.<em>  
><em>The village chief refuses, saying the death was justified.<em>  
><em>The Royal Guard, drunk from feasting the entire night, are enraged by this insult to their authority. They cut down the chief and everyone around them, fearsome warriors even in their shaky state.<em>  
><em>They realize what they have done as the alcohol passes from their system and slaughter everyone in the village and burn it down, erasing all their traces. If anyone found out about what had happened, every single one of them would be executed. They leave and camp miles away.<em>  
><em>In the morning, an old man investigates the smoldering ruins. Everything is silent... except the cries of a baby. He digs the child out and takes it to his hut in the middle of the woods, where he mourns the loss of his friends in the village.<em>  
><em>He puts the baby on a cot and it falls asleep peacefully. He looks down at it pitifully. "Luctor," he says. "Your parents are dead."<em>

Luctor awoke and his eyes blurred before they adjusted to the light. Birds on the windowsill chirped merrily. He sat up.

"Oh, you're awake. I was just about to wake you up. Aran's waiting for you." Athena looked at him more closely. "Are you OK? You look strange."

"Yeah, just... just a bad dream."

"Alright. Bathroom's down the hall on the right, I suggest you clean yourself up a bit."

Luctor closed his eyes. A phrase stuck in his head by hundreds of repetitions from his teacher echoed from the depths of his mind. _You can't escape your past, Luctor._

He sighed and went to the bathroom. He looked into the mirror at his own reflection.

His brown hair, longer on the top, was around three inches long. The sides of his head were shaved from the bottom up, gradually becoming thicker on the way up. His white eyes, unique in their color, had once seemed innocent and carefree. Well, at least more so than they did now. Now, wrinkles above his eyebrows present from all the worrying he had done in the war against the Black Mage marked his forehead permanently. A thin stubble covered his face, the only facial hair that he had grown in a hundred years.

He unattached one of the metal frames of his fan, allowing it to hang loosely from the rest of it. He held it securely and used it like a knife, shaving himself carefully.

He looked much younger without the stubble.

_Athena's right. I don't look much different._

He walked downstairs.

"What took you so long, man? I've been waiting here for twenty minutes already." Aran looked at Luctor again. "Glad to see you got rid of the bush on your face. You don't look good with it."

Luctor smacked Aran on the head. "No one asked you."

Aran swung his arm at him, but Luctor dodged it easily. Luctor smacked him again and laughed.

His face red, Aran asked, "So... we going to the dojo first or what?"

"Sure, whatever. Sooner I recover, the sooner I can help out."

"Alright."

As they walked, Luctor took a look around. So much had changed since he was last here. Henesys used to be filled with dirty streets; garbage had been littered as if rubbish bins had yet to be invented. The houses had been simple wooden huts that oftentimes leaked rain.

Now, Henesys was the cleanest of all the cities. The streets of mud had been repaved with beautiful white stones, and filthy rags no longer littered the streets. The primitive huts that had once surrounded the streets had been replaced with graceful mushroom houses with whitewashed cement walls and orange cap roofs.

But Luctor found himself thinking. _The only kind of fortification this city has are two wooden gates at the opposite ends of the city. If the Black Mage were to attack Henesys, they would barely help._ He resolved to talk to Athena about the matter.

They stopped outside of one of the smallest houses Luctor had ever seen. It was five feet tall and could probably fit two children's beds in it. Aran knocked on the door.

A moment later, a man's head popped out. Luctor estimated his age to be around thirty, yet he had the explosive energy of a five year old. "Aran! And... I suppose you're Luctor. Ready for training, eh? Let me get dressed." His head retreated into the house and he closed the door.

"Please don't tell me that's my trainer," Luctor groaned to Aran.

Aran laughed at him. "Don't worry, he's just a Cleric. We're bringing him along to heal us if we accidentally injure each other. Maybe even resurrect us if we lop each other's' heads off."

"What? Lop each other's' heads off? Are you planning to do that to me today?"

"That was a joke, dude. Relax. He's only a Cleric, he can't resurrect anyone yet."

The door opened and the man squeezed out from the doorway. He stood up straight. He was six feet tall. "So, Luctor. I'm Eddy, and I'm your Cleric for your dojo training today... blah blah blah." He paused and looked around. "Oops, I forgot my staff! Hold on a mo'." He opened his door and put his torso inside, with his legs sticking out. After a couple of seconds, he emerged, holding a simple metal staff with a large emerald mounted at the top.

"Well? What are we waiting for? Let's go!" Eddy briskly walked towards the wooden gates.

Aran clapped Luctor on the back and walked after Eddy. Luctor sprinted after them.

After several minutes of walking just outside the borders of Henesys, Eddy suddenly motioned for Luctor to stop. They were in front of a small dilapidated shack. The roof and walls were falling apart. The wood seemed to have been eaten through by termites.

Luctor motioned towards the shack. "Um... what's this?"

Aran grinned. "Our dojo."

"Our – what? That thing looks like it's going to collapse any minute!" Luctor said incredulously.

"Yeah, we've been trying to get it remodeled." Aran frowned. "Ah, well. It's all we've got."

He and Eddy disappeared through the doorway. Luctor shook his head and walked inside.

At first, his mind couldn't process what his eyes saw. Then his realization hit him as hard as an Acme anvil: No one was there.

Luctor looked around nervously, wondering if this was a trap set by the Black Mage. The only sound was Luctor's own breathing. Eddy and Aran had disappeared as if they had never existed. The entire place was covered in at least an inch of dust. An old canoe was propped up in the corner, but it seemed to have been half-eaten by termites. A board above him creaked ominously, breaking the silence. Luctor snapped open his fan and immediately leaped backwards, expecting an attacker to jump down.

But no one was there.

A loud banging noise came from right below his feet, as if a hellhound was trying to claw its way to the surface. Startled, Luctor leaped backwards again, and a hidden trapdoor opened.

Eddy's head appeared and he scowled at Luctor. "Aren't you supposed to be super-observant or something? There's a hidden door. No one in their right mind would use this old piece of crud as a training place."

"Uh... right." He climbed down the ladder under the trapdoor after Eddy.

Aran lifted his massive pole arm as Luctor approached. "I don't know where your skill level is at, so I think we should start out with some sparring."

Luctor snapped open his fan. "Right."

They stared at each other for a couple of minutes, each waiting for the other to make a move. Aran loosened his grip on his pole arm, letting it slip through his hands a little before tightly gripping it again. He held it only a few inches from the bottom. It would give him a longer reach but less power.

Luctor rushed forward even as Aran swung his pole arm. He dove to the ground, letting it swipe over him harmlessly while skidding forward. Aran used the momentum of the pole arm slide his hands back up the shaft of the pole arm for more control, then yanked the head of the pole arm in front of his body, blocking Luctor's strike.

Aran pushed the bottom of the polearm forwards by rotating his torso, aiming at Luctor's head. Luctor ducked, then, sensing a brief opening as Aran's entire body was facing the other way, stood up and slashed upwards with his fan. Aran swiftly pulled his pole arm back around, smashing the shaft into Luctor's shoulder while receiving a minor cut.

He backed up, shoulder throbbing painfully. Aran once again shifted his grip to the bottom of the pole arm and swung it diagonally upwards to the left. Luctor ducked under it, turned around, and hooked his arm around the pole arm. He used its upward force to jump directly on top of the weapon, pinning it down with his body weight. He shifted one of the metal frames on his fan loose and flicked his wrist towards Aran, sending the sharpened frame flying at him like a throwing knife.

With his right hand still gripping his pole arm, Aran used the metal wrist guard on his left hand to deflect the missile away. Luctor lunged, determined to fit a strike into Aran's short moment of weakness. As Luctor's foot left the blade of the pole arm, Aran forced the pole arm closer to his body, allowing to regain a grip with his left hand. He then used the extra hand to force the pole arm backwards, hitting Luctor's chest with the bottom of it.

There was a sharp crack and Luctor flew backwards a couple of feet onto his bottom. He winced.

"I think you broke my rib," he told Aran.

Aran set his pole arm upright in the ground. "And that's why we have a Cleric."

With a small snapping sound, Eddy suddenly appeared next to Luctor. He looked down at him and raised an eyebrow before pointing his staff at Luctor's chest. The emerald surged with green energy, which was promptly absorbed into Luctor's chest.

"Better?" Eddy scratched his goatee.

"Yeah, thanks." Luctor stood up unsteadily.

"Well, your skill level is pretty... low," Aran frowned. "You can do basic maneuvers, but you weren't doing anything more advanced. You didn't forget how to do all your carefully developed techniques, didja?"

Luctor sighed. "No, I remember perfectly how to do them. I remember the feel of my muscles when I was doing them. I'm just not strong enough..."

"I guess we should start by building up your strength, eh?" Aran smirked. "Get down and do ten."


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Day 14**

_With a baby, a bow and arrows, and a pack full of food and blankets on his back, the old man starts from his snow-covered hut to the Orbis Tower. He steadily marches forward._  
><em>His boots crunch through the thick layer of snow. The baby is oddly quiet but ravenously devours whatever food the old man gives him.<em>  
><em>After a few days, they finally reach the bottom of the tower. It seems to stretch endlessly into the sky, the top obscured by the clouds that never leave; it connects the floating land of Orbis to El Nath below. In such times of peace, even the Red King Von Leon, whose bloodline has owned the tower for centuries, does not send soldiers to guard it.<em>  
><em>The old man looks upwards, then turns his head towards the baby on his back. "We will discover your destiny, child."<em>  
><em>They camp for the night on the bottom floor of the tower, sheltered from the bitter El Nath winds and the wolves that prowl outside.<em>  
><em>The next morning, the old man hoists the baby and the pack onto his shoulders, then hikes upwards. Six hours later, they finally reach Orbis. As he takes his first steps upon the floating land, he turns as if lost for a few seconds, then enters the Orbis Park.<em>  
><em>Pixies swarm around the park, levitating inches above the ground. The old man wades through them, fixing his eyes upon a house two miles away. After another hour, he reaches the house and knocks firmly on the door.<em>  
><em>The door opens by itself, and the old man bends down to avoid hitting the baby's head on the doorway. The house is entirely dark, with no candles or lights. The only light comes from outside, through the doorway.<em>  
><em>The door creaks shut, and in the complete darkness, the baby becomes restless, pulling at the old man's hair. A moment later, a skull with a candle inside of it floats inside, illuminating the interior of the house like a grotesque jack-o-lantern. A single table with two chairs around it is in the middle of the room; no paintings or other furniture adorn it. The limited light from the skull does not allow very much to be seen.<em>  
><em>Footsteps are heard, and an ancient woman walks in. Her gray hair is tied up behind her, and more wrinkles line her face than gullies are in a canyon. She wears a simple purple robe and what remains of her teeth are brown and rotten.<em>  
><em>She waves her hand, and the skull sets itself on the middle of the table. She sits down in one of the seats at the table.<em>  
><em>A young girl stumbles in, tethered by a gleaming silver chain. She carries a tin tray with a single cup on it. She removes the cup and places it on the table in front of the old woman and leaves.<em>  
><em>The old woman motions for the man to sit down, and he does. "What is it that you seek? From El Nath you have come; one would not make such a journey without purpose."<em>  
><em>She waves her hand before he can speak, and the skull morphs into a glowing crystal ball. "But I have seen your purpose in coming here. You, Draqe, wish to know the destiny of the child you carry, Luctor. You have rescued it from certain death by starvation after the massacre of his village by the hand of the Royal Guard. Is this not true?"<em>  
><em>The old man, Draqe, nods. "I have heard from many that you are the last authorized practitioner of black magic. The magics that are practiced now is limited in power; black magic can achieve much that is not within the scopes of white and elemental magic."<em>  
>"<em>What you have heard is true. However, perhaps you did not hear of the fees I charge to those who seek me out."<em>  
>"<em>I will accept the price that you set."<em>  
>"<em>Even if it is your life that I require?"<em>  
><em>Without hesitating, he replies. "I will accept, no matter the price. If it is my life, perhaps I will no longer know the sadness that haunts my soul."<em>  
>"<em>Very well." She raises her voice in volume. "My price is that you raise this child, Luctor, as your own and that you should withhold of him information of his true parents until he reaches the age thirteen. Are you in agreement?"<em>  
><em>The very air seems to hum in waiting for Draqe's response. "I am."<em>  
><em>The door bangs open, but no light filters in. In front of a background of black, a white silhouette of an enormous figure steps into the room. An unnaturally hot gust of wind blows into the room, and the white figure disappears. Despite the sudden increase in temperature, the old man feels a chill gripping at his heart. The door creaks slowly closed once again.<em>  
><em>Uninterested by this, the old woman's hands revolve around the crystal ball, and it turns pitch black, emanating only the tiniest bit of light. She pours the contents of her cup over the crystal ball, making it hiss violently. She leans in closely and gazes into the crystal ball.<em>  
><em>As the crystal ball once again glows more brightly, she speaks. "This one has a long road ahead of him," she says. "Nurture him well, for he will save us when it seems that all hope is lost."<em>  
>"<em>Save us?" the old man asks.<em>  
>"<em>No. Not you," she says harshly. "You will be dead." She seems to regret her words. "Us, the world." She pauses again. "You will die-"<em>  
><em>Draqe interrupts her. "I do not wish to know when specifically I shall die, or at least not now. Tell me instead: will I live to see the day Luctor becomes a man?"<em>  
>"<em>Yes. However, you shall not see the day he is officially considered by the Royal Kingdom a man," she replies. She seems genuinely sorrowful.<em>  
>"<em>Thank you, Spiruna... for this."<em>  
>"<em>It is nothing."<em>

Aran lightly tapped Luctor on the shoulder, waking him up. They had stayed at the dojo overnight; it had a bathroom, kitchen, storeroom, and a room with several bunk beds just through a doorway.

Luctor groaned. "I haven't been this sore since I was sixteen." Every muscle of his body felt as if someone had drilled a hole into it and poured acid into it.

"I know you're pretty sore, so I thought we'd do something else today." Luctor raised an eyebrow. "We're going to go get some weapons for you."

Luctor protested. "I've always used a fan, and I'm not going to give it up for a little fruit knife or a gigantic sledgehammer."

"I'm not telling you to give it up. I just think it would be appropriate if you get some small throwing knives or something. You have to have some backup weapons in case you lose your fan."

Luctor thought about it. "Makes sense, I guess. Where to?"

"We're going to Kerning."

"Aahhh," Luctor groaned. "Why'd we have to _walk_? Every step I take is killing me!"

"Calm down, sheesh. It can't be that bad..."

Luctor limped alongside Aran's confident stride in the outskirts of Kerning City. Homeless sat around under overhangs, their blankets newspapers. The air was hazy and filled with pollution, much unlike Henesys' clear skies. The sun hung lazily behind all the contaminants in the sky, and only a red orb of light filtered through all the air.

The streets were filled with trash, dogs so thin that their bones showed wandered around, and taxis rushed through the streets like water in a river. Tall apartment buildings loomed down on the people.

"Right up there," Aran said. He was pointing at a small door with a sign that said "OUT OF BSNSS."

He opened the door and walked in. Luctor walked after him and closed the door behind him. The room they had just walked into was small, dark, and had no decorations of any kind; it was almost definitely not a legal shop. Just two very dim lights illuminated the place. There were two wooden counters on the side of the room opposite from the door; each had a line in front of it. Behind the counter on the right was a man with an eyepatch over his left eye. A white bandanna covered his hair, and he wore a simple blue vest over a white shirt as well as blue jeans. His black boots were covered with mud.

"I'm tellin ya, this dagger is one of the best quality you will ever find. It's made out of titanium with adamantium melted in."

The man at the front of the line argued back. "I don't care if it's made out of solid orihalcon, there's no way it's worth a million mesos. I'm offering five thousand, and that's my final offer."

"If it's your final offer, get out. I'm not gonna get ripped off here in my own shop."

Enraged, the man pulled out a knife and slammed it into the counter, leaving it quivering. "I said five thousand!"

The weapons seller pulled out the knife, which left a huge mark. "I don't care. I don't like you, and you're not buying my dagger. But now you owe me ten thou' to fix this counter. Plus I'll keep your knife."

"I'm not paying for nothing," he said stubbornly.

Another man, dressed in a reddish brown, was behind the other counter to the left. He seemed to be selling clothes, but now he flicked his arm, and a steel throwing knife flew out at the man who wanted the dagger. It pricked his cheek and drew a drop of blood, but a chain kept it from going any further. It was swiftly pulled back into the hand of the man in red, who dropped it into his sleeve.

"You will pay, with mesos or blood. I care not which," he said coolly.

Unnerved, the man took out a wad of bills, flung it at the white bandanna man, and ran out. He screamed "I'm calling the police!" before fleeing outside.

"Troublemakers," the bandanna man grumbled. He counted the wad of bills and stuck it under the counter. He started talking to the next customer quietly.

The man in red didn't turn to the next customer in line, instead looking at Aran. "Alex."

The bandanna man turned around and looked at the man in red, who pointed at Aran. "The hero is here." The bandanna man leaned to the side to take a look around the line of four people, all of whom had turned around as well, then motioned for Aran to come forward.

"Thanks, Chris. There's people waiting for you, though," Alex said. The line in front of the man in red didn't seem too impatient after his display of knife-throwing prowess.

Aran and Luctor walked to Alex, the bandanna man.

"Here to arrest me? Who's the other guy?" he asked Aran.

Aran laughed. "Don't worry, Alex. I'm not here to arrest you. This is Luctor, the Hero of thieves."

"Never heard of him," Alex muttered.

"You know thieves; they like to stay out of the limelight."

"True, I guess."

"Anyways, Luctor's got his main weapon, but I've been thinking he needs a backup in case he loses it."

Alex looked interested. "Come to do business, eh? Let me see your main weapon," he said to Luctor.

Luctor hesitated, but pulled out his fan and opened it.

"Put it here, on the counter." Upon seeing Luctor's face, he laughed. "Don't worry, I'm not going to steal anything from a friend of Aran's."

Luctor put it on the counter. Alex turned it around, so the handle was facing him. He inspected the metal frames and the cloth. "Hm. The cloth seems very tough yet flexible... perhaps from one of the sheep of Chryse... sharpened frames... good for close combat fighting... they seem detachable as well." He looked at Luctor and motioned towards the fan. "May I?"

Luctor nodded. Alex gently pulled on one of the metal frames, but it didn't come out. He looked back down at the handle and smiled. He shifted the bottom of one of the frames to the side, and then was able to pull it out. He held it up and waved it around. "Thick enough so it's not too flexible to be unrealistic for throwing knife, yet still light enough to not be a burden to throw. A deadly weapon... and it looks nonlethal." He reattached the frame and passed the fan back to Luctor.

"So what were you thinking of?" he asked.

"A dagger no longer than six inches and maybe some throwing knives just in case." Luctor paused, then asked tentatively, "Can I see the dagger the other guy wanted?"

Alex reached under the counter, pulled out a dagger, and set it on the counter. Its hilt was wrapped in a brown cloth, and its five inch blade was a light gray yet slightly tinted orange. "It's not actually worth a million," he laughed. "I just didn't like the guy, and I thought it'd be good to get him to pay for the counter."

"Does it scratch?" he asked.

"Nah." Alex pulled out a deep purple knife, an orihalcon one – made out of the most expensive ore on the planet except for ores from the Temple of Time. He ran his knife along the length of the orange blade, making a terrible noise. When he lifted his knife, there wasn't even a single mark on the dagger. "Even though it's an inferior ore, it's been tempered with spells so powerful that its hardness is on par with pure orihalcon."

Aran inspected the dagger, then asked, "How much?"

"Hm... it's actually worth five hundred thou', but since you're friends, I'll give it to you cheap. Two fifty."

Aran immediately protested. "Two fifty is way too much! A hundred is more fair."

Alex shook his head. "I can only go down to two fifty, that's how much I bought it for. This thing is so hard that even if you slam a fifty ton rock on it, only the hilt and grip will be damaged. The blade won't deform at all. It's so sharp that you can cut a silk handkerchief in the air with it – other blades will just push it to the ground. If you just touch the edge of it, you'll draw blood."

Aran sighed. "We'll put that to the side for now. We need other stuff as well, and I don't want to spend everything on just one dagger."

"You need some stuff to throw?" Alex directed the question at Luctor.

He nodded. "Sometimes I won't be able to get up to an enemy fast enough, so I guess it'll be good if I can take them down from afar."

Alex nodded in agreement. "In that case, I've got some nice knives right here." He pulled out a dark brown box and opened it. Six dark blue knives gleamed brightly, as if happy to see some light. They seemed slightly opaque, as if made from a dark sapphire. Alex pulled one out and showed it to Luctor.

"Classic throwing knife structure. Perfectly balanced. Cloth grip just in case." He attached a thin string to the bottom of the knife and threw it at a target across the room, hitting it right in the bulls eye. He pulled it back with his string and unattached it. "These are cheap. Fifty thousand."

"What's the difference between throwing knives and stars?"

Alex thought about it, then replied. "I actually don't know."

Chris replied from across the room. "Knives are more aerodynamic, so they travel faster, more accurately, and are affected less by wind. But they're harder to use, since if you don't throw them straight and they spin, you're likely to hit someone with the blunt side. With stars, all sides are sharp, so there's no chance of that happening."

Luctor nodded. "Makes sense. I'll take it."

"That all?" Alex asked Aran.

"Yeah. 300, right?" Alex nodded and Aran counted out thirty ten thousand meso bills and passed it over the counter.

Alex looked at Chris. "You've got em, right?" Chris nodded and beckoned for Aran and Luctor to walk over. He put a dark blue belt with six straps on the table as well as a smaller dark blue belt with a sheath on it. The straps on the bigger belt looked like the belt straps on normal pants, but rotated by ninety degrees.

"Stay still." Chris took the larger belt and fastened it around Luctor's waist, then put a throwing knife into each slot, 3 on his left, and 3 on his right. He strapped the smaller belt onto the middle of Luctor's thigh and stuck the dagger into the sheath. "Don't have to carry that box around, you know. In fact, we're gonna keep the box."

Aran and Luctor thanked Chris, then walked outside.

"I'm still sore, you know."

Aran rolled his eyes. "Fine. Wait here," he said curtly before disappearing in a dark alley.

Luctor sat down on a heavily vandalized bench to wait for Aran to come back. He gazed blankly at a wall across the street that was completely covered with graffiti. The design consisted of a crudely drawn figure carrying two swords – or were they daggers? – on top of a soaring owl. Seconds later, the wall shimmered, and a woman wearing a white coat walked out. She was accompanied by two men wearing black. Each had two short sheaths hanging from their belts.

The woman stared back at Luctor confusedly, and then a look of recognition crossed her face when she saw the fan that hung by Luctor's side. One of the men leaned forward and whispered something into the woman's ear, and the woman looked to each side and hurried away, followed by the two men.

Luctor, puzzled by this, jumped suddenly when a bottle dropped into his open hand. Aran plopped down next to him.

"That's a painkiller. It should make your muscles feel less sore."

"Oh." Luctor uncapped the small bottle and peered at the yellow liquid. He looked at Aran, back at the bottle, and then chugged it.

Aran stood up. "I think we'll take a taxi back to Henesys while we wait for the potion to take effect." He signaled a taxi, which screeched to a halt. He pulled Luctor inside.

"Where to?"

"Henesys, please."


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Day 14**

Another knife sailed two feet above the target dummy and thudded into the wall behind it, leaving a total of three knives sticking out of the wall, two on the floor, and one dangling precariously from the side of the dummy.

Aran sighed. "Well, at least you've finally got the spin thing down."

Luctor sighed as well. "Yeah, a fat lot of good spinning a knife the right way will do to an enemy when you want the thing between his eyes."

"Just keep practicing, you'll get it eventually," Aran said as he picked up the knives. He handed them back to Luctor.

Luctor stuck them back into the slots on his belt, then angrily threw one at the dummy. It missed by five inches to the side and clattered to the ground.

Before he could throw another one, Aran made a suggestion. "Try using your left hand. Your right hand will most likely be busy with your fan anyways."

Luctor snorted derisively and snatched a knife from his left side and threw it with his left hand. It struck the dummy, on the very outside ring of the painted target. Aran raised an eyebrow. Stunned, Luctor threw another one with his left hand, this time crossing his body with his arm and throwing one from his right side. It hit the head of the dummy.

He threw the remaining three knives. Two of them hit the dummy; both of them on the target; the last knife barely missed the dummy, scraping its armpit before sailing past.

"Not bad," Aran said. He looked at the grandfather clock in the corner. It was 3 in the afternoon. Luctor had been practicing his throwing knives for two hours already. "Why don't we do something else? It's getting boring watching you."

"Something else, like...?"

"Something to improve your mobility. Didn't you use to do something with your hand?"

Luctor ran forward and jumped in the air. He held out his hand, focusing energy into his palm before expelling it, pushing himself backwards back into the spot he had started from. "This is the easiest thing ever. It's amazing you can't do it."

Aran rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever. What about a teleport?"

"Hm. It's not too easy; even when I was in top condition, it was pretty difficult... but it's worth a try, I guess." Luctor backed up to the wall, then ran forward. With a crackle of lightning, he disappeared after four steps.

Five feet from where he disappeared, there was another crackle, and Luctor was thrown forward from out of nowhere. An orb of electricity hung in the air. He had been off balance from his teleport and fallen face-down on the ground, but now, he got up on his hands and knees. An arc of electricity extended from the orb, and zapped Luctor. He groaned and collapsed to the ground.

Aran rushed forward between the orb and Luctor, blocking any further arcs with his own body, but the orb was spent and simply faded away.

"Eddy!" Aran yelled at the cleric, who had been watching Luctor throw knives but dozed off after minutes. Eddy awoke instantly and jumped, startled. He saw Luctor on the ground and immediately grabbed his staff and teleported to Luctor.

The emerald on the tip of his staff glowed once again with green energy, and he transferred it to Luctor, whose burn marks slowly faded. "What happened?" he asked Aran.

"He tried to do a teleport."

Eddy raised an eyebrow. "Teleports are for mages."

"No, no. It's a different type of teleport. Luctor uses a massive amount of energy to rip a hole to the next dimension and back or something, I don't know. But the energy always comes back with him as electricity and zaps him and others around him. It's great in battles, which is why I told him to practice it..."

Eddy broke off the healing spell. "That's all I can do. He probably just used more energy than he was supposed to."

Aran glanced at the clock in the corner. "I gotta go. Athena's waiting for me. Tell Luctor I went for a meeting, and I'm sorry about the teleport." He paused. "Look after him, Eddy. Tell him to keep practicing – that teleport can save his life."

Eddy nodded. "Will do."

**Day 16**

_Luctor crawls around on the hard wooden floors as the old man watches. He cradles another baby, a smaller one. He hums softly and feeds it a bottle of milk, sitting down on the only piece of furniture in the house, a bed._  
><em>A massive blizzard had struck just a day after he returned from his meeting with Spiruna. Before he left for the trip, he had given the other baby to Muller, one of the only humans that the old man had contact with more than once a year.<em>  
><em>The small hut was not built very well, and the old man had worried about the roof collapsing on him from the weight of the snow. He had reinforced the walls, columns, and roof to be safe. It was a good thing he did so; the blizzard had laid down so much snow that the door or windows cannot be opened. The only way outside is through the chimney.<em>  
><em>Luctor tugs on the old man's pants and tries to crawl onto him. He fails to do so and scrambles onto the bed instead, then peers curiously at the smaller baby. The old man smiles and lays the baby down next to Luctor.<em>  
>"<em>Luctor, this is Francis, my son."<em>

"Wake up, _hombre_. Athena wants to see you."

Luctor yawned and sat up. He looked Eddy in the eye. "You have a really piercing voice."

Eddy pretended to look hurt then smiled. "All the better to annoy you with, my dear little boy." He glanced at the clock that hung on the wall behind him. "Let's not keep Athena waiting, now. We were supposed to be there three minutes ago."

Luctor swing his feet off of the bunk bed, letting them hang over. "You go over there first and tell her I'm coming."

"Fine. Just hurry up." Eddy disappeared with a small clicking sound.

Luctor jumped off of the bunk bed, but disappeared in a bright flash of lightning before he hit the ground. Just outside the doorway, he reappeared. He clenched his teeth when a stray arc of electricity struck him in the back, but made no other movement.

"Well, at least I can do that now," he sighed to himself. He stood up and hastily made himself a sandwich. He held it in his mouth as he dressed and strapped on all his belts, then ran as fast as he could to Henesys.

_10:18 AM_

"Luctor, you have a responsibility to the Maple World. You're a Hero, and I expect you to act like one. When we call a meeting and you're supposed to be here, _be here on time_." Athena Pierce looked very frightening when angry. Her silver hair seemed to have lost her glow and taken on a sinister darkness, and her usually warm brown eyes seemed to be positively burning with coldness.

"I'm sorry-"

"I don't want to hear it," Athena snapped. "Sit down."

All the commanders were gathered here: Athena, Grendel, Kyrin, the Dark Lord, and Dances With Balrog; all were accompanied by their most trusted advisers, none of whom Luctor recognized. As always, Dances With Balrog was poorly dressed for the occasion, opting to not wear a shirt. In addition to the usual job commanders was also the strange lady that Luctor had seen in Kerning, flanked once again by two men. The Rememberer was also present.

Athena's office had been rearranged; wooden chairs were in rows and her desk had been moved to the back of the room. Each commander sat with their advisers by their side. Luctor sat down next to Eddy in the back.

Athena spoke from the front of the room. "Lady Syl, please deliver your report again so Luctor will know why we're here."

The lady from Kerning stood up and walked to Athena's side. She turned around and swept her eyes around the room. Her nose wrinkled slightly as the Dark Lord passed through her line of sight, and then her expression relaxed once again when her eyes rested on Luctor. She seemed to be in her late fifties, perhaps even sixty years old. Her soft eyes looked out of place on her scarred face – it seemed as if she had seen her fair share of battles.

She spoke. "Three days ago, I received information that large metal doors, most likely mithril, had been installed on the Tree of Sixtopia in the middle of Victoria Island. As we all know, the Tree is our only way to Ereve, Orbis, and Edelstein. I was deeply concerned but not convinced of the informant's trustworthiness. As such, I sent one of my most trusted men to investigate."

"He came back to me two days ago in the morning. He confirmed my fears that such a door had been installed, and told me the doors were locked and could not be opened. I immediately left for Henesys to call a meeting with Athena." Lady Syl's eyes never broke contact with Luctor's.

Luctor realized the morning he had seen Lady Syl was the morning she was describing.

Athena broke in. "We discussed the matter at length and decided this must have been the Black Mage's doing. We called everyone except Luctor, and sent a squad to open the doorway."

Grendel stood up from his seat. "The Tree is of utmost strategic importance to Victoria Island. It is right in the middle, and the fastest way from one town to the next is by crossing directly through the middle of the island – past the Tree. Whoever controls the Tree will be able to cut each town off from one another and overwhelm each one systematically. Not to mention that all the other regions of the world will be almost defenseless without us to help them fight against the Black Mage." He turned to Luctor. "We are sending you in to open that door and help us regain control, Luctor."

Luctor choked on his own spit with astonishment. He coughed several times before Eddy smacked him on the back to help clear his airway.

"Me? I'm not ready! I've only been training myself for – this – this is ridiculous! Send in Aran or Freud – I mean Evan!"

Athena Pierce sighed. "We already sent in Aran and Evan. They failed. They're in Kerning Hospital – nothing life-threatening, but they've been incapacitated for the next few days."

"What... What about Mercedes?"

Kyrin, the woman who had greeted Luctor when he first teleported from Omega Sector, shook her head. "We haven't been able to contact her. She's in Edelstein, either helping out the resistance or satisfying her fantasies with the Demon Slayer. Perhaps both."

"How can I possibly hope to succeed where Aran and Evan have failed? They're both ten times stronger than I am right now!" Luctor realized he had stood up to yell at everyone and quickly sat down.

The Dark Lord stood up. "It's not about strength, Luctor. It's about tactics. Aran and Evan both tried to charge straight in for thirty-six consecutive hours, but the defenses the Black Mage set up in there prevented them from getting very far. You, on the other hand, can sneak in and open the door with the cunning of a Thief."

Luctor protested weakly. "I-I-what about you? Why can't you send your Thieves in and take care of this?"

Grendel teleported next to Luctor in an instant and laid his hand on Luctor's shoulder. "We can't do this, Luctor. This invasion upon Victoria Island has given us a wake-up call. We must train our soldiers as fast as possible while still reinforcing the defenses of each town in case we are attacked. Live up to the legacy you left behind, Luctor. Be a Hero and do this."

Lady Syl had been watching the Dark Lord with an expression of great dislike on her face, but she looked back at Luctor. "I'm sorry if it feels like we're ganging up on you, Luctor. But this is the best decision," she said softly.

"We decided before you got here. This is what happens when you come late to meetings," Athena added. "Are you ready to go?"

Luctor stood up resignedly. "Yes."

Grendel winked at him. "Best of luck," he said.

Luctor closed his eyes.

_Sixtopia Tree: 10:34 AM_

When he opened his eyes again, he was in a trench of some sort. It was about ten feet deep and four feet wide. It seemed to have been just recently dug – the soil around him was still moist. Within the looming shadows of the walls, Luctor felt as insignificant as a public service announcement.

Behind him, a ramp gradually exited the trench onto the surface of the world, just feet away from a forest of tall moss-covered trees – the forest of Ellinia. Presumably, the ramp also led up to the battle – the very battle that had wounded both Aran and Evan. An odd battle though, as quiet as it was. There wasn't a sound except for the low whistling noise the wind made as it blew over the top of the trench.

In front of him, the trench continued onward for about ten feet, then turned left abruptly out of sight._ If there are people in this trench, it'll be up there... Grendel wouldn't teleport me into an enemy trench... would he?_

Luctor decided to see what lay ahead. He flicked open his fan and advanced cautiously, straining his eyes to see through the shadows. He rounded the corner and saw that the trench continued for another ten feet forwards before turning sharply to the right.

As soon as he turned the corner, there were two gun barrels within spitting distance of his face, as well as four more handguns pointing in the general direction of his head several feet ahead. The guns were held by soldiers – soldiers in familiar blue clothing with helmets of the same color to go with them. _Wait a minute..._

The soldier farthest from Luctor lowered his gun and took off his helmet – a strangely familiar uniform gave way to a strangely familiar face with a strangely familiar military buzzcut.

"Luctor?" Commander Moss peered at the intruder – a man in blue that was indeed quite difficult to see in the dim light of the trench – with a disbelieving smile on his face.

"I – Commander!" Luctor grinned and lowered his fan. _Of course there would be others. Aran and Evan don't make up a squad by themselves._

Commander Moss put his gun back into his holster smoothly without looking at it, as if he had practiced the very same movement a thousand times over. He tossed his helmet to the side of the trench. "This is Luctor, everyone. Hero of Thieves. He's come to help us out... Right?" he looked at Luctor for confirmation.

Luctor nodded. "I'm here to make the tree accessible again." He paused, not sure how to put it. "What happened – I mean, I thought you were dead!"

The Commander frowned. "As soon as you were teleported out safely, we used every remaining spark of electricity we had to power the defense system. It's built for defense against aliens, but I have to say, it's pretty effective against monsters of darkness as well. That puppeteer – Francis – we hit him with our guns three hundred times over, our automated guns hit him three hundred times over, but he didn't fall."

"Sounds like Francis," Luctor muttered grimly. "Stubborn prick."

"But he saw he wasn't gaining ground. Our automated guns couldn't be killed – they were firing from behind metal plating, and the monsters were being mowed down. So he retreated."

"I see..." Luctor said uncertainly. "Anyways, the tree – what's our plan?"

Moss signaled to his soldiers and Luctor. "Forward, men."

They followed the trench, which zigzagged towards the tree – ten feet forward, ten feet left, ten feet forward, ten feet right. "We can't go forward all the time, or the guys up there would be able to see us and fire right at us. We avoid that by going sideways half the time, so all they see is the other wall and not us, because the walls are only four or five feet apart," Moss explained as they hurried through the trenches.

Finally, after what seemed to be about a quarter of a mile of trenches, the group spilled into a sideways trench fifty feet wide. A doorway sat in the middle of the trench, leading into what seemed to be a bunker. LCD screens and paper maps hung on the trench walls. About five more soldiers were monitoring the screens, making a total of eleven soldiers in the entire system of trenches. On the left, the trench stopped abruptly after ten feet, with a wall of dirt perpendicular to the bottom barring the way forward. On the right, the trench turned into a ramp which touched to the surface.

Luctor, following Moss and two other soldiers, stepped into the darkness of the bunker.

"On," Moss said. Lights and several LCD screens flickered on, showing a large table in the center with several more paper maps on top of it. "Display Sixtopia Tree." A hologram of the Sixtopia Tree and its surrounding area stretched from the dirt ceiling to the dirt ground.

Moss gradually brought his hands together, as if reenacting a slow motion version of a slow clap he had started at a viewing of an opera, but stopped his hands at half a foot apart. The hologram of the tree shrunk, leaving it just three feet tall. He then pushed the hologram towards Luctor and the two other soldiers, who both had their helmets still on.

Moss seemed to notice the two soldiers for the first time. "Take off your helmets," he told them.

The taller soldier stood just about two inches above Luctor. He took his helmet off, revealing a blond buzzcut and brown eyes. His face remained in a neutral expression, but something about his posture made Luctor think this man wasn't exactly the most social person in the world.

"This is Captain Zach Mullen, one of the best men I have." Zach nodded awkwardly at Luctor, who nodded back.

Moss motioned to the shorter soldier, who was about an inch shorter than Luctor. "This young lady here is my daughter, Lieutenant Cora Moss."

Cora took off the hairnet she was wearing and let her long brown hair hang down to her shoulders. Her welcoming emerald eyes and unwavering smile told Luctor that she probably spoke more words in one minute that Zach did in a week.

"Nice to meet you, Luctor."

Luctor shook hands with her. "Likewise."

Moss clapped his hands together. "Great. Now that you're all best friends, let's get on to our plan." He stooped down to the ground and held his hands open with his palms facing upwards as if he were asking for money. He slowly stood up and the bottom of the tree hologram rose up to about waist height.

On the ground of the hologram, Moss pointed out a blue zigzag that ended with a large horizontal stretch. "This is our trench system." He touched the right-side end of the long stretch, which lit up and displayed a small bubble that read "FORWARD RAMP." Moss waved his hand towards it. "As you can see, the right end of our trench is a ramp that leads to the surface. Any squads that are sent out exit from there."

He pointed at the forest behind the trenches, away from the tree. "We had to start our trenches from Ellinia, simply because the Ellinia Forest provided us with the most cover."

"Trouble is," Cora continued, "the door is on the _west_ side of the tree, on the opposite side of us."

"Not to mention we have a fifty-yard stretch from here to the tree. The tree has windows open with an archer right there behind each one. They fire at us every time we try to approach," Moss added.

Luctor frowned. Fifty yards was a lot to cover under heavy fire. "So what do you propose?"

Moss pointed at the table in the middle of the bunker. A large gray brick sat on top of some maps, keeping them from flying away before a nonexistent underground breeze.

"Five pounds of top-tier explosives," Moss explained. "We figure you could get that to the tree, put it on the tree, get out of there, and blow open a nice new door for us."

But Luctor was already shaking his head. "That won't work," he said.

Zach raised an eyebrow and spoke for the first time. "Those five pounds of explosives will blow open a deep cave in the Perion cliffs. How could it not work?"

Luctor pointed at the hologram. "This tree was planted thousands of years ago by the first elf king as a symbol of his race's everlasting love for nature. Even though the tree is hollow, the walls must be feet thick. But that's not all. About two hundred years ago, Hanse augmented the tree with a large amount of magic, making the wood nearly indestructible. He did this so we could use it as a station for ships that come and go and not worry about it burning or being chopped down or anything."

Moss stroked his chin. "If the wood is indestructible, then how are there windows up there? How are there platforms?"

"Powerful spells can create holes and growing patterns in the tree. Hanse allowed this in his spell."

"OK then, scrap the new-door plan. What do you suggest?" Moss asked Luctor.

"Well, first things first. Why can't you just have some snipers shoot the archers from the trenches?"

Cora answered instantly. "The archers are protected by mages. Every time we try shooting them, some kind of shield absorbs the force of our bullets. We've tried and we've seen it; the air ripples and the bullet just drops to the ground."

"Hm. We can't kill the archers from out here, so we have to get inside." Luctor seemed to be deep in thought. "The weak spot is the door. We'll have to get in from there."

Zach turned towards Moss and then looked at Luctor. "Mithril has a low melting point. If we can somehow melt it-"

"Do you have your blowtorch?" Moss asked.

Zach shook his head. "No. Well, yes, I have it, but it's not hot enough to melt mithril in a reasonable amount of time."

"What if we make it hotter?" Cora asked.

"Well, of course it would work then..."

"But how?" Moss looked at Cora questioningly.

"Easy. Liquify the explosive brick and we can replace the fuel in the blowtorch with it. Doctor Forstan taught me how to liquify it," she added.

"Of course," Moss nodded. "Brilliant man, him. How long should it take?"

"Shouldn't be more than an hour..."


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Day 16**

Luctor breathed deeply, as if preparing for a swim race. His heartbeat thudded in his head and blood roared in his ears. _This is my first combat mission since I've recovered_, he realized. His anxiety was almost smothering him.

Someone yelled something, perhaps at Luctor, but he didn't hear the words over the noise in his ears. He shifted uncomfortably, wondering when he would be given the message to go. The soft southwest breeze blew the grass, which waved as if it were beckoning Luctor to hurry and come up to the surface.

Luctor felt a punch to his shoulder, and his hearing immediately sharpened. The nervousness drained right out of him as he turned his head around.

"Are you OK? Can you handle this?" Moss turned Luctor around with his left arm and studied his face, despite the fact that Luctor would not meet Moss's gaze. "Pre-combat jitters," he said comfortingly. "Don't worry about it."

Moss hefted up a gun with his right arm. It looked like a normal assault rifle, except instead of one clip of ammo, it had five hanging from a thin rack that extended out the right side. Luctor stared at the gun.

"This is for you, soldier."

"I-I don't need a gun," Luctor hastily mumbled.

Moss closed his eyes in a _what am I going to do with this guy?_ expression and then opened his eyes again. He stated simply, "Of course you do. You have, what, six knives? That's not going to do much."

"Why can't I have a normal gun?" Luctor mumbled. His lips seemed to be working against him, wanting to stay shut instead of forming words.

"You won't be able to change clips as efficiently as a trained soldier. With this, you use one up, it pops off automatically, and the next one slides into place. Takes about one second. Four seconds of firing, then one second to reload. All you need to do is point and hold the trigger." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Might want to hold it up with your other hand just for stability. Keep the earpiece in."

Moss tossed the gun to Luctor and walked away. Luctor caught the gun clumsily, almost shaving his ear off with his fan. He snapped the fan shut and tucked it into his waist belt so he would be able to grip the gun properly with both hands. He leaned back against the trench side and took a couple of deep breaths to clear his mind.

"It'll be fine," he muttered to himself.

A group of seven soldiers approached and Luctor nodded at them. Their faces were obscured by reflective visors and they were all dressed in the same uniforms, although some had different marks on the shoulders.

"Thirty seconds," Luctor heard Zach's quiet voice say. He couldn't pick out Zach from the group, but he spotted Cora instantly as the shortest soldier. Zach was probably the one next to her.

"Ten seconds," Cora said.

Luctor turned towards the forward ramp and sighed. He waited for the countdown.

"Five."

He dug his foot into the dirt.

"Four."

The cold metal of the gun bit into his skin.

"Three."

His heartbeat slowed almost to a halt.

"Two."

A soldier pulled the pin out of a grenade.

"One."

Luctor took a deep breath.

"Go."

A shadow passed over the trench as a cloud was blown in front of the sun. A grenade sailed over the side of the trench.

Luctor pushed off of his hind foot and immediately broke into a running sprint. He took two steps and felt a massive shockwave urgently pushing him in the back, and he almost stumbled before he even got to the surface. Dirt and singed grass rained down into his hair. He took two more steps then disappeared with a flash of lightning, reappearing instantly ten feet closer to the tree with his gun pointing at the top right window.

The gun braced against his shoulder, he pulled the trigger and held it. He could feel each bullet being expelled from the barrel as the gun violently, passing tremors through his entire body. He immediately noticed the ripples in the air in front of the window he was shooting at, as well as the bullets that fell as they hit the shield. The torrent of bullets caused the shield to ripple so much that nothing was visible through it.

_Click._ A clip of ammo dropped from the gun and another slid into place.

Out of the corner of his eye, Luctor saw golden arrows flying at him from the two other windows. _Come on, guys._ Another grenade flew towards the stream of arrows and exploded, knocking them out of their paths toward Luctor with its shockwave.

_Click. _The second clip fell. Luctor's hands felt numb from the never-ending vibrations.

Four soldiers were shooting at the other two windows from the safety of the trench, one was lobbing grenades at the arrows, and two others ran as fast as they could to the tree.

_Click._ The third clip was depleted. The two soldiers were only halfway.

Another grenade exploded, knocking several more arrows out of the air. The archers behind the windows, unable to see, had stopped firing.

_Click._ The last clip slid into place, and Luctor fought to keep the heavy gun in place.

Finally, the two soldiers reached the tree. His muscles burning, Luctor dropped the gun with half its last clip unused and teleported the remaining distance to the Sixtopia tree.

Lightning crackled and Luctor almost collapsed, but he leaned his back on the tree and panted heavily. He heard heavy boots squishing the loamy soil as two soldiers ran to him. Lightning danced across his skin, but he felt so numb from the constant shaking he didn't feel a thing.

"Are you OK, Luctor?" Cora asked urgently. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"I CAN'T... HEAR YOU," Luctor gasped for air while yelling. His ears were still ringing from the grenade explosions and the ridiculous amount of gunfire.

Cora took off her helmet and put her finger to her lips. Luctor nodded silently. Cora took off her hairnet with one hand and rummaged around in her pocket with the other. She pulled out a small, clear pill and shoved it into Luctor's mouth.

The pill dissolved in his mouth immediately, and Luctor felt as if worms were wriggling in his ears. The ringing slowly faded.

The other soldier took his helmet off and greedily sucked in a breath of air. "Take a breather," Zach said. "We're safe for now; the archers won't see us unless they stick their heads out of the windows and look straight down."

Cora looked straight up towards the windows. "Assess the situation."

Luctor had gotten some air back into his lungs and sat up a bit straighter. "Eight windows. At least eight archers, at least four mages, unknown number of close-combat assailants."

Zach smiled grimly. "Three versus anywhere from twelve to a thousand."

Luctor barked out a short laugh. "I've been through worse."

They sat against the tree in silence for another minute or so. The explosions had left gigantic craters in the rolling grass-covered hills. Birds that had been frightened off came back to their nests on tiny branches that stuck out of the Sixtopia Tree. The ground was littered with shiny bullets, and the birds went around picking them up and flying them back to their nests.

The two soldiers pulled water bottles out from their backpacks and drank thirstily. Cora offered Luctor the bottle, and he accepted gratefully.

Cora stood up. "You know what to do? Do we need to run through the plan again?" she asked.

"Yes and no," Luctor responded quietly.

"Let's go."

Zach and Cora both quickly checked to see if their assault rifles were still slung over their shoulders, if their ammo was still in place, and if they still had their handguns. Satisfied, Cora motioned for them to move out.

They made their way to the door, carefully sticking as close to the tree as they could. They hurried around the tree with Cora in the lead and Luctor in the rear.

Cora held up her hand, motioning for them to halt. She turned and motioned for Zach to move ahead. He walked forward ahead of Cora and stopped a yard ahead of her. He knelt down, facing the large blue-tinted metal doors, and laid his assault rifle down on the ground. He swung his backpack around and pulled out his modified blowtorch.

Pointing it at the middle of the doors, where one of the bolts that held them in place would be, Zach pulled the trigger. There was a quiet hissing noise, but nothing else happened. He frowned and released the trigger, then tried again.

Nothing.

He turned his head to Cora and beckoned her to come. Cora inspected the blowtorch as Zach whispered inaudibly to her.

Cora passed the blowtorch to Zach and whispered back. She turned around and motioned for Luctor to come forward.

"The flint mechanism is defective," she muttered, obviously in an ill mood. "Without it, the stream of liquid won't light into flame. I probably broke it when I was replacing the fuel."

Luctor rubbed his chin. "You have matches, don't you? Can't you use them?"

"No. Even if I could light it up like that, the flames from the torch would burn the flesh from my fingers." Cora subconsciously rubbed her handgun.

Zach noticed the movement and his eyes lit up. "When you fire a gun, the bullet should be hot-"

Cora looked doubtful. "Would that even work?"

"It's worth a try."

Luctor had no idea what was going on, but Cora told him to back up a bit. She took out her handgun and aimed it right next to the nozzle of the blowtorch.

Zach pulled the trigger, and the blowtorch hissed as liquid sprayed into the air. Cora pulled the trigger of her gun and bright white flames immediately blossomed into existence. She backed up next to Luctor and watched Zach expertly run the torch up and down the door.

Searching through her backpack, Cora dropped several tuna can-shaped items on the ground before sitting down. Luctor picked one up and inspected it. It did look like a can at two inches tall, three inches in diameter, and with metal coating on it. Half the cans had fins on them, and the other half had relatively smooth sides.

Cora sat down next to the small pile of cans with what looked like the bottom of a rocket in her hand. It had three fins on the bottom of it and was five inches long and three inches in diameter. She snatched the smooth-surfaced can out of Luctor's hands and clipped it on top of the rocket.

One by one, she clipped the remaining cans on top of each other, alternating between smooth-surfaced ones and finned ones. Luctor looked on curiously.

"Multi-stage rocket," she explained. "This bottom part is the initial propulsion system. After it goes up ten feet, it explodes, and the rest of the rocket rides the shockwave up another ten feet, the bottom segment explodes, and so on. It'll clear the tree of some attackers, hopefully." She picked up the last segment, which was pointed, and clipped it on top as well.

The rocket had eight segments, including the bottom and top. _Good for eighty feet,_ Luctor calculated silently. Cora inspected her handiwork, pulling on the rocket, but it didn't fall apart. Satisfied, she set it down and looked back at Zach. Luctor followed her gaze. Zach was still busy melting the locks off the doors.

A loud snap brought Luctor's attention back to Cora. She waved the rocket in front of his face and said, "Put it in the middle of the tree when you go in, then come out straight away." Luctor nodded, but Cora had already turned her head towards the distant Henesys farms.

"Dad?" she whispered with her hand cupped over her ear.

"Commander during missions, Lieutenant Moss," Commander Moss's amused voice crackled into Luctor's earpiece.

Zach looked quizzically at Cora, then turned back to the doors.

"Yes sir, almighty Commander." She was obviously fluent in both English and sarcasm. "Can you locate us?"

There was silence for a second, then Moss spoke again. "You're at the doors of the tree. Is there a problem?"

"No, just checking to see if it's accurate," Cora responded hurriedly.

"Good luck, Lieutenant," Moss crackled again before fading into silence.

The hissing from Zach's direction stopped abruptly. He looked at Cora. "It's done."

Cora walked briskly to Zach and inspected the doors. She looked through Zach's backpack and took out two magnetic handles before attaching one to each door. She looked at Zach.

"Ready?"

Zach nodded.

With one person pulling on each handle, the doors swung open. A steady stream of golden arrows immediately poured out through the doorway, but they all passed by Zach and Cora harmlessly.

A hand appeared around the far door holding two unpinned grenades. A wrist flick later, the two grenades were inside the tree, and the hand withdrew. The two soldiers immediately pushed the doors shut. Cora pulled something that looked strangely like a strap of fabric out of one handle and connected it to the other. She pressed a button and the fabric tightened itself, then waved urgently at Luctor. "Bring the rocket," she yelled.

Two explosions in quick succession shook the mithril doors violently, but the strap of fabric held them shut. As Luctor ran to Cora, she pressed the button twice to loosen the fabric, then unattached it from the left handle. Pulling the door open just enough for Luctor to slip through, she whispered a single word to him as he passed. "Center."

With the rocket clenched in one hand and his open fan in the other, Luctor rushed in. Arrows immediately poured down at him, and swiping his fan as fast as he could, he did his best to deflect the arrows, but there were too many. One arrow scraped his cheek and another left a gash on his left bicep.

The inside of the tree was circular and coated with badly burned moss. Three charred bodies lay in broken positions against the side of the tree. One was missing its legs and half of its right arm. A pair of spiral staircases swept majestically upwards along the inside of the tree.

The faceless shooters standing on the staircases were relentless, firing arrow after arrow at Luctor. Panic gripped him as he realized he was about to be the Black Mage's personal pincushion.

A gust of wind swept up some dry leaves around Luctor's feet and he knew instinctively what he had to do. Tucking in his arms, he pushed every bit of energy he could into the small gust twirling around at his feet. He closed his eyes as his muscles suddenly felt fatigued, and let the wind carry him. It grew in power, whirling faster and faster, and it began to turn Luctor around with it.

Arrows were tossed away by the small tornado Luctor had generated like a piece of paper before a hurricane. Luctor barely heard the archers' yells of panic over the loud whistle of his tornado. He knelt down forcefully as if anchoring himself to solid ground, and stopped spinning immediately. The tornado whipped around him for a second longer before exploding violently, brushing away any arrows in its way and forcefully slamming a couple of archers into the wall.

Luctor firmly planted down the rocket in the center of the tree and stumbled out through the doors.

Zach caught the exhausted Hero in his arms, keeping him from falling to the ground. Cora pushed the doors closed and attached the strap of fabric again.

"Is it in place?" Cora asked urgently.

Luctor nodded weakly and extracted himself from Zach's arms, swaying from side to side unsteadily.

Cora looked at Zach. "Now?"

Covering his right ear with his hand to shield his earpiece from the wind, Zach enunciated each word carefully. "Commander Moss, activate multi-stage rocket number sixty-two F. Authorization code: sentinel, six, unobtainium, sunbelt, eight, two, adenine, section Omega."

A pause, and then Moss's voice: "Captain Zach Mullen, multi-stage rocket sixty-two F activated."

There was a muffled roar as the rocket's initial propulsion system violently spat fuel out to be lighted up. It slowly faded away, only to be replaced by a series of explosions that sounded distant and separate from the peaceful rolling green hills outside. The explosions pounded rhythmically as if some marching band were playing a song minus its melody.

After a few seconds of silence, Commander Moss's voice crackled into Luctor's ear. "Multi-stage rocket sixty-two F has detonated its cap. Now would be a good time to enter the tree."

Cora glanced at Luctor. "Interior of the tree was the same as it was on the holograms, right?"

"Yeah, two spiral staircases around the inside of the tree."

Zach checked his ammo. "Cora and I will go on the left, you take the right."

Cora tossed Zach his helmet, and they both put theirs on. Resting her gun upright against her right shoulder, she pressed the red button on the handle twice with her left hand, releasing the strap. "Clear the top!" she yelled as she pulled the door open.

Luctor entered first, running across to the base of the stairs with his fan held ready to block any arrows. But the rocket had evidently taken care of all the archers; no arrows were fired at him, Zach, or Cora as they rushed across to the staircases.

The three of them stood there for a moment, each looking upwards for any signs of life. Zach pointed upwards. "There's a large mass of enemies up there, at the top."

Cora nodded. "As expected."They began to run up the staircase, guns held firmly in place.

Luctor watched the two Omega Sector soldiers carefully, making sure he was running at the same pace as them so they were all level with each other.

"You're approaching the bottom-most window," Commander Moss informed Luctor. "Five seconds at your pace."

As he passed by the window, Luctor saw nothing but a couple of soot-covered bones and two piles of ashes. "They're almost completely incinerated," he said, surprised.

"Multi-stage rockets are made up of very high-temperature explosives," Moss explained. "You three are going to meet up at the second window in five seconds."

Luctor brushed by Zach and Cora, almost stepping on one of the piles of ashes.

The two Omegans ran past the third window without incident, but just seconds later, they yelled at Luctor in warning. "Mage and archer, fourth window!" They opened fire upwards across the tree at the mage and archer, but a forcefield stopped the bullets from going any farther. Arrows hummed through the air at the pair of soldiers through the forcefield.

_They're going to be killed,_ Luctor realized with dread. He was still one revolution of the staircase under the mage and archer...

There wasn't anything to do to save his friends.

He simply couldn't get across to the other staircase fast enough.

Or could he?

Luctor hopped off of the stairs, planted his feet firmly on the wall behind him, and pushed violently against the wall, towards the arrows, Cora, and Zach. They had already stopped shooting to jump for cover, but they would be skewered with arrows before they got out of the line of fire.

Time seemed to pause dramatically as Luctor just hung in the middle of the air, with forty feet of nothingness under him. He extended his arms behind him, Ironman-style, and propelled himself forwards as fast as he could by expelling energy through his palms.

When he was neck to neck with the first arrow, he twisted around and knocked it out of the air with his fan. He brought his legs around behind him and landed confidently on the stairs, right in between Cora and Zach.

"I-what-" Cora spluttered disbelievingly. Zach was blinking as if he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.

Even the archer and the mage seemed astonished by the insane maneuver Luctor had just accomplished.

He probably would have laughed at them and cracked a bad joke, but he wasn't done yet. He launched himself off the stairs once more, swiping the last of the arrows out of the air before disappearing in a flash of lightning.

He reappeared with some more lightning, zapping the mage in the back with such force that he was thrown off the stairs into the void. Luctor whirled around and slashed across the archer's throat with his fan.

Breathing roughly, Luctor looked at Zach and Cora. They stood up, looking at Luctor with new-found respect, then started running up again. After they caught up with him, Luctor continued as well.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Day 16**

They all stopped at the eighth window to catch their breaths. The three of them had just run up four hundred stairs as fast as they could, ascending eighty feet within the tree. Another fifty stairs, or ten feet, and they would be at the Sixtopia dock.

Above them was the base of the dock. It looked pretty much like the harmless green ceiling of the giant green tower that the tree was, but above it was another hollow space in which passengers of intercontinental flights would embark on their rides...

Zach and Cora were certain more enemies would be in that hollow space. But the harmless-looking green ceiling had blocked the multi-stage rocket from going any further and thus thinning out the enemies in the docking area.

It also blocked the soldiers' infrared scanners from determining exactly how many enemies lay in wait for the trio.

Luctor stood up. "Well, shall we?"

Zach and Cora looked at him. "Are we in a hurry?" Cora asked.

"Not really. I'm just getting restless."

It was true. The longer he waited, the more adrenaline pumped into his body, urging him to just hurry up and _move_.

The two soldiers stood up and put their helmets on.

"I think we should stick together this time," Zach said.

"Just so _that_ doesn't happen again," Cora added. She was clearly referring to the incident at the third window.

"Of course," Luctor responded.

He was just about to start up the stairs again, but Cora grabbed his arm.

"I almost forgot," she said. She was holding what looked like a very small sponge in the palm of her hand. "Put it in your left ear. Your right ear should be protected by the earpiece, which has this built in on it, but this will protect your left ear from getting damaged by loud noises like gunfire. It'll filter out anything above a certain volume level."

Luctor grabbed it and stuffed it into his left ear. It didn't seem to make a difference.

"Alright, let's go kill these bastards," Cora said.

"Formation!" the enemy leader screamed as soon as he saw Luctor ascending from the staircase, his head poking above the floor.

Eighteen disorganized infantrymen instantly sprang into action, forming three lines of six. The first line was a huge wall of metal shields with nothing shown except swords sticking out in the gaps. Luctor couldn't even see the second and third lines, but they were probably equipped with smaller shields and shorter swords.

"Charge!" the leader shrieked.

_What the hell is with his high voice?_ Luctor thought to himself.

Despite the leader's annoying voice, the enemy squad obeyed the order and marched steadily at Luctor and his companions.

Zach squeezed the trigger of his rifle, firing a few bullets at the warriors, but the bullets simply ricocheted off of the metal shields discouragingly.

"Hold your fire," Luctor muttered, even though Zach had already stopped shooting to avoid risking anyone getting hit by ricocheting bullets.

_That metal wall doesn't mean anything if it's not blocking my way,_ he realized. "I'll draw off as many of them as I can. Deal with the rest!" he yelled at Cora and Zach.

Luctor ran forward towards the gleaming wall of death, then teleported to behind the third line, right next to the leader. Luctor slashed his throat open, spraying blood from his high-pressure artery before anyone had time to react.

Astonished cries rang out as the eighteen warriors realized they were being attacked from behind and their officer had just been killed. They improvised, detaching the third line and half of the second line to go after Luctor, and left the entire first line and the other half of the second line forwards after the two soldiers.

There was a blue-tinted blur, and a glinting knife appeared in one of the warrior's chest. It had pierced right through his metal breastplate, lodging itself in his heart. The warrior collapsed, tripping two of his companions behind him. The rest continued to run at Luctor, who was just a few yards away.

The first one to reach Luctor swiped his sword at his head, and Luctor bent down to one knee to avoid getting his head sliced in half. He drew his orange dagger from the sheath on his left thigh and plunged the blade into his enemy's stomach.

The sword dropped from the warrior's hand as he gazed down in horror at the dagger in his stomach and the blood slowly oozing out. Luctor withdrew the dagger and caught the warrior's eyes for a second.

Luctor expected to see hate and defiance, but instead, he found fear.

It dawned on Luctor. _It's his first battle. _He felt guilty, as if he were the villain. _He can't be older than twenty..._

The warrior staggered backwards a few steps, clutching his stomach with such a look of concentration on his face that it appeared as if he would heal the wound through sheer force of will. But then, he sunk to the ground. He didn't rise again.

Two swishing noises reached Luctor's ears as two more warriors slashed at him, and he instantly knew he had been staying still for too long. _Now is not the time for sentimentality._

He teleported behind the two warriors, slashed right between the vertebrae on the neck of the one on the left with the dagger, severing his spinal cord. Luctor carried through with the motion and then brought it back around to bury it in the back of the one on the right.

Before he could take the dagger back out, a man with several facial scars stabbed at Luctor's ribs. Luctor ducked down onto the floor and rolled onto his back, sliding himself across the floor away from the action with a burst of energy from his palm.

He leaped back up onto his feet. Five enemies coming after him, with Scarface leading the way.

Luctor threw a knife at Scarface, but without even flinching, Scarface slashed his sword across its path, deflecting it to the side of the tree.

Disquieted by his opponent's display skill, Luctor charged and swiped his fan at Scarface's head. But Scarface had anticipated the attack and ducked, simultaneously swinging his foot around and smashing it into Luctor's right shoulder blade with so much force that Luctor stumbled forward.

He turned around and deflected Scarface's sword, then ducked as it came back around, all while while lifting his foot behind him suddenly to kick someone in the chin with his heel, snapping his head backwards with a sickening crack. He brought his foot around to kick the side of Scarface's head, but Scarface caught Luctor's leg with his left hand, and drew his arm back to break it.

Tearing his leg away from Scarface, Luctor pulled him off balance. He jumped high enough to avoid a sword in his back, then landed behind the attacker. Luctor kicked him forward, making him stumble right into one of his own allies' swords.

The three remaining were clearly the most experienced. One had a beard, one had a spear, and there was Scarface. They approached cautiously, eying his every move. Ten feet behind them was the body with Luctor's dagger in its back.

He sprinted at the group of three warriors, then teleported ten feet behind them. He spun around quickly, forcing enough energy into his fan to make the fabric glow with power. He swiped it, firing off the energy in the form of a gust of wind strong enough to make the spearman stumble forward. Luctor followed through with a throwing knife, accurately driving it into the spearman's heart.

The two remaining ones turned to him with a shout and ran towards him, obviously intending to close the distance between them before he could throw another knife. Luctor knelt down onto a knee and yanked his dagger from one of the fallen men.

He heard Zach shouting something, but he couldn't hear exactly what. There was a twinge of worry in Luctor's mind as he realized the two soldiers could be in real trouble. The sooner he eliminated these attackers, the sooner he would be able to help them.

Luctor charged at Beard and hit him in the chest with his shoulder. As Beard fell, Luctor braced himself by holding his arm firmly against Beard's neck, then twisted his feet around and knocked Scarface off balance with a well-aimed kick.

Beard hit the floor, and Luctor's arm, with his full weight behind it, crushed Beard's windpipe, rendering him unable to breathe.

Luctor swung his foot around and kicked Scarface in his scarred face, then followed through with a swipe of his fan. Scarface lifted his shield and blocked Luctor's blow, then stabbed at his heart with his sword. Luctor leaned to the left, but he was a fraction of a second too slow, and Scarface's sword grazed his chest, slicing through the carefully woven blue cloth.

_Stings like hell, but it shouldn't be a deep cut._

Quick as lightning, Scarface withdrew his sword and bashed his shield into Luctor. Temporarily dazed and seeing stars, he fell to the ground and rolled over instinctively just in time to avoid Scarface's sword, which sunk into the wood floor where Luctor's chest had been just a moment before. He kicked at Scarface's arm, twisting his wrist and forcing him to give up his grip on the sword.

Luctor jumped to his feet and flicked a knife at Scarface's chest, but missed and sunk it into his leg. Scarface screamed in agony and sunk to a knee. Blood streamed profusely out of his wound, quickly forming a pool of blood under him. His face became paler and paler, and finally, the arms that he was holding himself up with gave away and he collapsed, unmoving.

_Must have hit his femoral artery_, Luctor said to himself.

He turned towards where Cora and Zach had been a couple minutes before. Nothing was there except the bodies of three dead warriors. _They must have retreated._ Luctor shook his head. _I hope they're OK..._

He glanced behind him. Nothing stirred; every single one of them was dead.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then chased after the remaining warriors.

"Two revolutions below you, Luctor. Three hostiles. Do hurry," Moss's voice crackled drily into Luctor's ear.

Luctor looked over the edge of the staircase. The three remaining warriors were indeed two revolutions below him, pursuing the two retreating Omegans with their shields up to avoid bullets.

_Maybe I should..._

He thought about it for a moment. _Nah._

_Actually, why not?_

He jumped off the edge of the staircase, and when the moment seemed right, he held out his right palm and propelled himself to the other side of the tree. He crashed directly into the warrior who was nearest to the center of the tree, using the force of his movement to drive the dagger in his left hand in between the man's ribs.

Cora and Zach took advantage of the following confusion to shoot the other two warriors.

"About time," Cora grunted. She took off her helmet and wiped sweat off of her brow.

"I came as quickly as I could," Luctor responded.

"Enough dilly-dallying," Moss snapped. "Get up there and secure the area. Make sure nothing up there is alive. Run infrared scans. We'll pack up here and move to the tree once it's clear."

"Alright, alright. Let's go." Cora hoisted her gun and led the way back up to the top of the tree.

Once there, the two soldiers ran their scans while Luctor stood on the wooden dock protruding from the opening in the tree, staring out into the distance. A small speck of brown caught his eye.

Holding his hand up to his ear to keep out the wind, he said, "It seems there might be a ship coming in... due east. The dock is pointing right at it."

There was a moment of silence as Commander Moss looked for the ship in the sky. Then: "Kestov! Grab a pair of binoculars and check that out."

Cora looked at Luctor, then said, "Thermal scans finished. We're all clear in here."

"Thank you, Captain Moss."

Another couple of seconds passed before Zach said, "I can see it from up here, Commander. The system has identified it as a ship of Edelsteinian make."

Moss considered who it may be carrying aboard. On one hand, there could be innocent civilians or Resistance members fighting against the Black Mage. On the other, it could be carrying reinforcements from the Black Wings, since Edelstein was controlled by the Black Mage.

"Alright. You three, find cover in case they're Black Wings." Moss then issued orders to the men in the trench. "Kestov, Smith, Paron, get up there. Take two RPGs and two heavy machine guns. Buren, Planck, Cather, you're on sniper duty. Jacobs and Abras, train RPGs on the ship. Ground team, cover the tree squad from down here in case things get ugly. DO NOT FIRE FIRST."

Luctor watched as the soldiers in the trench moved into position and three men ran from the trench to the tree.

Then began the wait.

The ship traveled painfully slow, taking an entire twenty minutes to travel the three miles to the tree. However, after ten minutes, they knew why it was traveling so slowly. Moss informed them that one of the two elevatium-fueled engines on either side of the ship was smoking. The other undamaged engine must have been been on low power to prevent the ship from traveling in circles.

In another ten minutes, the boat was hovering in place, right next to the dock. A section of the hull lowered slowly to touch the dock, leaving a door into the bottom of the boat.

A man in simple brown working clothes walked out slowly. With dark brown hair, a dark brown beard, light brown skin, brown clothes, brown gloves, and brown boots, the man looked oddly monochromatic. His curly hair, which hung down to his eyes, seemed to be slightly singed. His boots were charred, with ash covering a part of them.

He looked at the guns pointed at his face and frowned. "I have no weapons," he grunted, holding his hands up. He had an Edelsteinian accent.

Zach made a quick hand motion, and one of the soldiers patted the man down. "Anyone else in the boat?" he asked.

His face expressionless, the man replied curtly. "One. He's dead."

"Kestov, Jacobs, search the boat," Zach ordered.

Two soldiers entered the boat, then came out half a minute later. "He's telling the truth," one of them said. "There's one guy in there with half his face torn off."

Zach took off his helmet and turned to Cora. "Monitor his pulse and respiratory patterns," he whispered to her. He turned back to the man. "Where are you from?"

"Edelstein."

"Pulse and breathing is steady," Cora said.

"Who are you with?" Zach demanded.

"Resistance."

"He's most likely telling the truth," Cora said.

Moss's voice crackled into Luctor's earpiece. "Detain him, but do not harm him. Get the boat down here."

Zach waved at the boat. "Kestov."

One of the soldiers entered the boat and began to take it away from the dock.

Reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a long string, Zach ordered the Edelsteinian man to hold out his hands in front of him. Zach wrapped the string around his wrists, then touched the ends together. The string tightened itself. "Alright, let's go. You're in front."

_Kerning City: 9:58 PM_

It was nighttime in Kerning City. Luctor was sitting down on the rooftop of the tallest building in the city, a hotel. His legs hung down from the roof, three hundred feet above the ground. Cars bustled around in the streets below him, and the sounds of the city washed over Luctor.

He looked up at the sky, with its brilliantly shining stars. It seemed strange that they were the same stars that Luctor used to look at a hundred years ago. He could see the same constellations that his surrogate father had pointed out to him: Tiger, the beast that had lived with the first king in the Maple World; Snake, the treacherous creature that befriended [and then eaten] more people than stars in the sky; Griffith, the terrifying yet knowledgeable ancestor of the terrifying Griffey; and Guardian, a muscled man in gold armor that guarded the gates to another world.

It felt relaxing and comforting to be so high, above everything, among such serene and constant bodies after a day of fighting. A strong breeze blew at Luctor's face, but it felt more refreshing than chilly.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" someone asked.

Luctor, startled, jerked his head at the source of the voice. It was none other than the Dark Lord, all dressed in black with red outlines. He couldn't believe the Dark Lord had been able to sneak up on him without him noticing.

Luctor peered at the Dark Lord. The man was built very similarly to Luctor: not tall, yet not short; and muscled, yet not too muscled. "No one has sneaked up on me like that since I was eight."

The Dark Lord laughed. "It's the wind. It blew the sounds of me climbing away from you." He had a rich voice that seemed to make the very shadows vibrate.

Luctor stayed silent, looking at the distant horizon.

"Welcome to Kerning City, Luctor. It's certainly grown from the small village it used to be when you first visited."

"Definitely. I think it's the biggest city around now."

There was an awkward pause. Then, Luctor asked, "Who is Lady Syl?"

The Dark Lord suddenly looked pained and sorrowful. "She was my childhood... friend. Her father, the Dark Lord before me, was my mentor in the arts of a Thief." He looked at Luctor. "When you take on the cloak of the Dark Lord, you pledge yourself to the cause of the Thieves. You give up many of your pleasures for the betterment of your people.

"So Syl did not much have a father. I was more than just a friend to her. I was family; the only family she had. Her mother, like a true Thief, had disappeared soon after she was born. She was her father's student, not his daughter. We trained together, both wondering who would be the next Dark Lord. Then, when we were both seventeen, just months before the Dark Lord was to name one of us as his successor, a message arrived.

"It was from Tristan, one of Dark Lord's only friends that he had allowed himself to keep. It asked for his help in killing Balrog, so the Dark Lord set out. He ordered both Syl and me to stay in Kerning City. I disobeyed, but I convinced Syl to stay behind. Dark Lord was unable to find Tristan, but after a long battle, he cornered Balrog in the depths of Sleepywood. And then it turned on him. It struck out at him with a devastating magick that deteriorated Dark Lord's mind. He used all his remaining strength to seal Balrog with the most powerful spells he knew.

"I ran out to tend to the Dark Lord's wounds, but his wounds were not of body. With his final sane breath, he declared me his successor and asked me to kill him. I honored his request. When I returned carrying his body, Syl was inconsolable. She would not listen to me and convinced herself that I had killed her father to gain the position of the Dark Lord. So she ran away and has fought and hated me ever since."

Luctor's voice seemed to have choked itself. "I-I'm sorry."

The Dark Lord looked at him. "Don't be. It is not her fault. It is not mine, either. It is no one's. Such is fate."

Luctor closed his eyes.

The Dark Lord glanced at Luctor's torn shirt, and said, "I'll have a new shirt sent to you."


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Day 17**

_Luctor is thirteen. He sits in the middle of a forest clearing, meditating with his fan set down next to him. Summer sunlight streams down and dances around as the leaves of the trees are blown this way and that. As still as he is, life continues for the forest; squirrels run around collecting nuts while birds chirp and sing._  
><em>The forest rustles and a twig snaps. Something much larger than a squirrel must be approaching, but Luctor either does not notice, or ignores it.<em>  
><em>An instant later, a man bursts from the cover of the trees. He presses a serrated knife against Luctor's throat, taking care to make sure his foot is on Luctor's fan.<em>  
>"<em>You're dead," he says.<em>  
>"<em>Am I?" Luctor responds slowly.<em>  
><em>An arrow flies out of nowhere and thuds into the ground, right next to the man's foot.<em>  
>"<em>It would seem I am not," Luctor says. He turns around. "You are."<em>  
><em>A boy jumps down from a branch on a tree behind Luctor and the man. He is thirteen as well, and is dressed in a simple blue robe. He carries a pitch black longbow five feet long. A quiver is slung over his back. He grins easily at Luctor.<em>  
><em>The man seems surprised, then smiles. He withdraws his knife from Luctor's neck and places it into a leather sheath at his belt. "Francis, Luctor, you have learned the value of teamwork. I am proud of you both."<em>

_That night, the three of them eat, seated around a wooden table. The dinner is simple; it is boiled fish with vegetables and spices added in._  
><em>The old man, Draqe, speaks. "Luctor, Francis. You are both men now, and it is time to seek your fortunes away from me. I expect that when I leave in the morning, you two will be gone. However, do not think for one moment that I have no love for you; both of you will always be my children. You are simply ready to face the world, and it is time to do so. You are always welcome to come back, especially if you bring food." He winks.<em>  
><em>Draqe then seems to realize that he has something else to say, and takes a breath. "You two are brothers in bond and raising, but not by blood. I expect you to treat each other as brothers by blood, as you always have.<em>  
>"<em>I-what?" Luctor stares at Draqe. He had always known that the two of them would be turned out to face the world, but Draqe's last statement was something new. "Father, if we are not blood brothers-"<em>  
>"<em>Then yes, one of you is not my son by blood."<em>  
><em>Francis opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it abruptly. He knows that both he and Luctor are wondering who Draqe is referring to.<em>  
>"<em>Luctor, realize that no matter the difference of blood between us, you will always be my son, and I your father."<em>  
><em>The blood drains out of Luctor's face. "You-you lied to me! You lied to us both!"<em>  
><em>Draqe scoops some vegetables into his mouth and chews slowly. When he finishes, he looks at Luctor's face. It shows nothing but shock and disillusionment.<em>  
>"<em>Have I told you of Spiruna, the black magician?" he asks softly.<em>  
><em>Luctor closes his eyes and nods shakily. Francis sits back into his chair and sighs heavily with both relief and worry.<em>  
>"<em>When you were but a babe, I traveled to Spiruna with you in hand to inquire of your fate. I knew not what to do with you; I already had Francis to take care of. So I decided to ask the one person able to divine the future of what lay in store for you, and whether or not I should raise you as my own. She, as I have told you, exacts a price for every question that is asked. For this question, her price was simple. I was to raise you as my own child, but not disclose who your true parents were until the age thirteen. I agreed.<em>  
>"<em>A pact was formed, deeper than words and simple oaths of fealty. Even if I had wanted to, I could not have abandoned you or tell you of your past. I do not wish to tell you of her divinations, for I sense nothing good will come of such an act."<em>  
><em>Luctor looks at Draqe. His eyes are lined with tears. "My parents?" he chokes out.<em>  
><em>Draqe relates what had happened to his parents, and how they had been killed. "I hope you understand, Luctor. I cannot ask that you forgive me, for that is your choice. But I hope you understand why I could not tell you."<em>  
>"<em>I understand," Luctor says. "I understand, and I forgive. I will leave in the morning." He stands from the table and walks slowly to his bed, each step expressing more sorrow than a river of tears.<em>  
><em>The next morning, when Draqe awakens, the two boys are gone. "Good luck," he says aloud. He thinks of his conversation with Spiruna so many years before, and how she foretold his death. "I await my time."<em>

Luctor woke up and looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand next to him. It was 9:57 AM. He sat up and rubbed his eyes groggily, thinking of how wonderfully soft his bed was compared to the Spartan mattresses of the Omega Sector.

He got out of bed and whipped open the curtains, staring into the center of Kerning City. He was on the twenty-ninth floor of the Sitcha Hotel, the building that Luctor had spent an entire hour on top of last night staring at the stars.

Stretching his arms out, Luctor yawned luxuriously. He stared out the window for another few seconds, then turned around. On the chair next to his bed was placed a set of neatly folded dark blue clothes with a folded paper on top.

Luctor unfolded the paper and read the elegant yet simple handwriting.

_As I promised, here is a new set of clothes. They are woven identically to your old clothes, except they are made of Chrysian wool, which will block all sorts of sharp objects, extreme heat, and many magicks._

_The wool obtained from the sheep of Chryse is also ridiculously comfortable. I hope you enjoy the clothes._

_Chrysian wool is hard to work due to its resistance to almost everything, and the wool itself is very expensive, so please do not lose the clothes any time soon. _

_Aran and Evan are currently staying in the Kerning City Hospital._

_Dark Lord_

Luctor smiled. He didn't have any plans for the day, but now that he knew where Aran and this Evan boy was, he had something to do. He quickly changed into his new clothes, discovering to his delight that the Dark Lord had placed two wads of 10,000 meso bills under the pile of clothes, although he didn't want to think about how the Dark Lord put all of this in his room.

Picking up the telephone, Luctor dialed for the front desk and inquired as to where the Kerning City Hospital was. The receptionist gave him directions, but added that it was four miles away and it would probably be best to hail a taxi to get there.

He opened up his window and clambered onto his windowsill. Three hundred feet below him, rivers of cars flowed through the streets of Kerning City. Luctor turned around and looked up, at the top of the building, then climbed all the way up to the roof.

The wind that had blown away Luctor's worries the day before had subsided and been replaced by a humid heat that reminded him of a sauna. A yellow haze settled over the city, giving it a rather disgusting smell. He strained his eyes to see the Kerning City Hospital, but the haze clouded up his sight and hindered him from seeing anything farther than a mile away.

_Oh well. I know what direction it's in anyways._

Taking a deep breath of polluted air, Luctor backed up across the roof of the building to the opposite side. He then sprinted in the direction of the hospital and jumped off the edge, leaving the concrete surface behind him.

A sense of blissful weightlessness gripped at him as he propelled himself forward with a burst of energy out of his palms. After a few seconds, Luctor teleported himself to the roof of the nearest building to avoid splattering himself against the side of it. He then ran across the tops of the remaining buildings to the hospital at a speed that any teenage mutant ninja turtle could never hope to match.

_Kerning City Hospital: 10:17 AM_

"Where are Aran and Evan?" Luctor asked the hospital receptionist.

The receptionist stared at him suspiciously. "I can't tell you that."

Luctor frowned. _Why would the Dark Lord tell me where they were if he didn't want me to visit them?_

He turned and began to walk away from the desk when the receptionist called out after him. "Hold it, young man!" In her hands was a stack of papers that she scrutinized with her eyebrows scrunched up. She looked back at Luctor and seemed to study his face closely. "What's your name?"

"Luctor."

Sitting down again, the receptionist placed the stack of papers down and beckoned for Luctor to come closer. He leaned over the counter, and the receptionist whispered into his ear, "Room fifty-six. From here, take a left, then two corridors down, take a right. It'll be on your right side."

Luctor thanked her and found himself in front of the door of room fifty-six in no time. He quietly slipped inside, where someone immediately wrestled him to the ground with a knee pressed in his back.

"Who are you?" a familiar voice asked harshly. Before Luctor could answer, it asked, "Luctor? Is that you?"

With his face pressed against the cold linoleum floor, Luctor couldn't see who the person was. He could tell it was a woman, but that was all. "Yeah, it's me," he squeaked out, the air being pressed out of him by the attacker's weight.

The knee lifted itself from Luctor's back, allowing him to roll over so he was facing upwards. He sat up and saw that the woman that had so easily incapacitated him was none other than Kyrin, the pirate that had greeted him when he was teleported from Omega Sector.

Judging by the wide grin on her face, she was very pleased to see Luctor. "We weren't expecting any visitors, so I thought you were an assassin or something. But it's nice to see you."

"Nice to see you too," Luctor muttered while rubbing his back. He stood up and looked at the two beds in the room. Aran was in the bed closest to him, and someone else was in the farther one. Both were sleeping. "So that's Evan, huh?" he asked, motioning towards the farther bed.

"Yup."

Luctor walked to the side of Evan's bed and looked down at him. At seventeen years, Evan was even younger than Luctor – and he certainly looked younger and more innocent, too. His entire face was baby smooth and worry-free, and he even seemed to be smiling at the corner of his mouth while sleeping.

"Luctor?" yawned someone behind him. Luctor turned around and saw Aran sitting upright, rubbing his eyes.

"Hey, man," Aran said drowsily.

A smile split Luctor's face. "You look a little pale."

"Uh, I'll give you guys some privacy," Kyrin said. She jerked her thumb at the door, eyebrow raised. "If you need me, just scream." She strode out of the room and closed the door behind her.

A glowing orange man popped into existence, hovering cross-legged next to Aran's bed. "I'm here too, not that anyone cares," he drawled.

"Hi, Maha," Luctor grinned. He sat down on Aran's bed. "So what's with these two?"

"I _told _him not to charge the archers like that, I _told _him the arrows were cursed, but did he listen? _Nooooooo._ And now look at him, an invalid in a hospital bed!" Maha snorted derisively before smacking Aran in the face. His glowing hand passed right through Aran's head harmlessly.

Aran waved dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I should've listened to you. Now stop gloating and go back to your polearm."

Sighing exasperatedly, Maha turned into smoke and retreated into the polearm leaning against the wall.

Luctor stared at Evan for a couple of seconds, then looked back to Aran. "How are things with Athena now?"

Aran sighed and lay down with his head on the pillow. "She's still not happy with me, but she's cooled off for the most part."

"Good, good," Luctor mumbled absent-mindedly.

In his sleep, Evan muttered something under his breath, turning from side to side restlessly. Suddenly, he bolted upright, eyes wide with terror and his shaggy hair disheveled. Every muscle in his body was tense. A single tear trickled down from his left eye.

When he saw that whatever had been bothering him was only a dream, Evan relaxed visibly, and his body slumped. "I dreamed I was Freud again," he said miserably. "The Spirit Link broke... pain... so much pain..."

Luctor turned to look at Aran, who was once again sitting upright. He shrugged and then cleared his throat.

"Evan, this is Luctor. Luctor, Evan."

When Evan saw Luctor, his face brightened up exponentially; a warm fire seemed to dance in his big eyes, and his body appeared to instantly charge up with overflowing energy. "Wow! I can't believe I'm in the presence of the legendary Thief Hero..."

Luctor laughed. "That's what I first thought when I went up to the four Heroes to join them. 'Wow, I can't believe all the Heroes are _looking _at me!'"

Evan's grin grew wider. "It just seems so amazing... you guys are like the best of the best!"

"Well, you're one of us now," Aran said. "You're not half bad yourself."

The rest of the visit passed by without much excitement; Luctor simply relayed to them the tale of how he had helped the Omegans take over the tree, and Evan told him about his life. Mir, Evan's dragon, was conspicuously absent, but Evan said Mir was staying with Athena Pierce because the hospital room wasn't big enough to accommodate a fully grown dragon. By the time Luctor left, it was two o'clock in the afternoon. Luctor returned to his hotel room and rested for the rest of the day, still fatigued by the events of the day before.

**Day 18**

"_Shh!" Luctor hisses to the men hiding behind the bushes and trees around the road. He is fourteen, and in the past year, has made a new life in the dense forests of El Nath. He looks up at Francis, who is perched, with an arrow nocked, on a tree branch above Luctor. A group of ten men traveling noisily down the road guides three mule-drawn wagons laden with food._  
><em>It is morning in the end of August. Crisp green leaves rustle as a warm summer breeze passes through the forest. A single butterfly flutters in the sunlight above the trees. It is one of the few butterflies that have not migrated south to avoid the bitterly cold El Nath winters.<em>  
><em>The sixteen men, including Luctor and Francis, lie in wait for the group to pass by them. The first wagon passes by, but the men do not act. As the second wagon passes by, Luctor motions for Francis to shoot.<em>  
><em>Francis fires an arrow directly into the neck of one of the enemies, killing him instantly. Before the man even falls to the ground, the rest of Luctor's band springs into action, killing all of the unsuspecting enemies except one. Not a single one of the ambushers are injured.<em>  
><em>Luctor strides up to the last man, who is on his hands and knees. Francis had punched him in the kidney, crippling the man with pain. Luctor grabs his hair and pulls his head up, looking into his eyes. "Which village did this come from?" he demands, motioning towards the wagons.<em>  
><em>The man spits into Luctor's face. "You're naught but a little boy. Go home and splash in a river; this world is for men."<em>  
><em>Luctor hears his men laughing behind his back. He knows they do not laugh at him, but rather at the man's ignorance of who he is. "You have no idea who I am," he says. "If you knew, you would rather have crawled through hell and back before saying that. I'll tell you who I am, my friend. I am the leader of the Brigands' Brigands."<em>  
><em>The man's eyes widen, fear replacing insolence and defiance. "Im-impossible," he splutters. "The leader of the Brigands' Brigands is ten feet tall and has an axe for a hand!"<em>  
><em>Luctor's men roar with laughter once again; they had spread this seemingly absurd rumor to instill fear into their targets, and this rumor was readily accepted, for no one who had the misfortune to fight against the Brigands' Brigands had ever survived before.<em>  
><em>Smiling coldly, Luctor again asks the man: "Which village did this come from? If you'll not answer willingly, I'm sure we can find a way to coax the truth from your tongue."<em>  
><em>The man gulps nervously. "If I tell you, will you let me go?"<em>  
>"<em>Let you go? Let you go, free to rob more villages of the things they worked for? No, friend. I will not let you go. But if you tell us, I will let you join us in our fight against the criminals that plague this world. In this way, you can keep your life and atone for your past misdeeds." He looks around at the dead bodies that litter the forest road. "A chance that these men never got."<em>  
>"<em>I'll join you! We... we stole all of this from Cista, ten to fifteen miles down the road."<em>  
><em>Luctor lets go of the man's hair and looks to his men. "You heard him. Mount your horses; we're going to Cista." He looks down to the man still kneeling at his feet. "Get up. You're coming with us, but if you feel like trying to cause any trouble, don't forget how easily we took down your friends."<em>

_Luctor's band arrives in Cista just before evening, at about five o'clock. The villagers are overjoyed to see the safe return of their winter provisions, and even give Luctor's band a wagon full of food, because they had produced a surplus over the course of the year. They allow the Brigands' Brigands to stay the night before leaving the next morning. The village elder invites Luctor and Francis to stay at his house._  
>"<em>Thank you so much for bringing back our food," the elder sighs. "I fear we would starve over the winter without it."<em>  
>"<em>It is nothing," Luctor replies. "I fight against the injustice in this world."<em>  
><em>The elder raises a wrinkled hand to Luctor's face. She brushes his face tenderly. "So young..." she says. "So young, and yet, so much responsibility. You do more work than the Red King's Royal Guard, yet if you were to apply, you would be rejected on account of being too young."<em>  
><em>She turns to Francis. "You, too, are young. I sense that you two are brothers, yes?"<em>  
><em>Francis nods. "Not by blood, but by heart, we are indeed."<em>  
><em>The elder shakes her head. "So young..." she says again. "It is a tragedy that there are so many robbers around that even children must take up arms against them." She yawns. "Forgive me, but I am old, and I must repair to bed. Help yourself to the food and beds in my house; it is the least I can do for you."<em>

When Luctor woke up, he felt refreshed and filled with more energy than ever before. Although he had fallen asleep the night before wondering what he would do the next day, he instantly realized that there was someone he desperately wanted to see: Lady Syl. This woman intrigued Luctor for reasons he didn't know, but she intrigued him nonetheless.

But how would he find her? He thought back to the day that he had first seen her, when he had been sitting on a bench waiting for Aran. _There was that wall with a weird drawing on it... a flying owl with a man on top of it. The man was carrying two daggers or something._

It took him an hour or so, but Luctor finally found the bench he had been sitting in earlier in the week. It seemed to be even more heavily vandalized than before, although Luctor couldn't be quite sure. As always, cars rushed through the streets.

He looked across the street and immediately saw the wall the the curious design on it. He walked across to it and touched it, expecting his hand to go through as if it were nonexistent.

His hand touched cold and very solid brick.

"Huh," Luctor muttered.

He put both his hands, spread out, on the wall, trying to discover the trigger point for the spell that would make it intangible. He must have looked either crazy or extremely suspicious, rubbing his hands all over the wall, since just a couple seconds later, a man in a straw hat walked up to him.

"Um... what are you doing?" the man asked.

Luctor noticed that the man had two sheathed blades hanging from his side. _Maybe he's one of them, _he thought. "I'm looking for Lady Syl."

The man peered at Luctor, as if trying to stare into his soul. "What is your name? Have you come to become an acolyte?"

"I'm Luctor, and no. I just want to talk to Lady Syl."

The man looked at Luctor suspiciously, then his face softened. "I'm Ryden, gatekeeper of the Dual Blades. Lady Syl's palace is behind this wall." He leaned nonchalantly against the very side of the wall, making it shimmer slightly. Ryden motioned for Luctor to enter.

Taking this to mean that the spell was activated, he walked through the wall.

He immediately saw the palace; one would have to be blind to miss it. The road to the palace was paved with gray stones and was juxtaposed on either side by cherry trees, which were in full blossom. Pink flowers floated gently down to the ground and into Luctor's hair as he walked under them.

Stairs led the way to the palace, but they were guarded by two men who immediately blocked Luctor's way. "What is your business here?" one of them asked gruffly.

"I wish to speak to Lady Syl."

A nasty-smelling cloth bag descended over Luctor's head, and he felt all his weapons being removed from his body. His hands were wrenched and tied behind his back, and he was led on by the two men, who held him by the shoulders.

After ten minutes of stumbling and tripping over stairs he couldn't see, Luctor was pushed forward, his hands were untied, and the bag was taken from his face. He took a deep breath of fresh air, savoring the absence of a sweaty odor.

He looked at Lady Syl, who was seated on the floor, legs crossed, in front of a low-standing table. Two men sat adjacent to her.

"Luctor!" she said in surprise. "Please, sit down." She motioned to the only unoccupied side of the square table. "I apologize for the way you were treated, but it was a necessary safety precaution. My guards do it to keep outsiders from knowing my true location in the palace."

"You should replace the bag," Luctor muttered.

"Yes, I've had some complaints about the smell of it. I suppose I should." Lady Syl looked down at the map in front of her and her bodyguards. It seemed to be a detailed map of Kerning City, but it didn't appear to have any of the streets or buildings marked on it. Syl folded up the map and placed it behind her. "Just business," she said. She looked at Luctor, then asked, "Why are you here?"

"Well, I just wanted to talk."

Syl looked at him expectantly. "About?"

"The Dark Lord. Why-"

Syl cut him off. "Did he send you here?"

"No, I came of my own accord. I just want to understand why you-"

"Why I hate him so much." Lady Syl nodded slowly, as if every motion caused her pain. "I assume _he_ has told you?"

"Yes, he says that the former Dark Lord, your father, fought against Balrog, who took control of his mind. He asked the current Dark Lord-"

"Jin," Syl interrupted.

Luctor tilted his head. "I'm sorry?"

"The current Dark Lord's name is Jin."

"Anyways, your father asked Jin to kill him."

"You would not understand," Syl began slowly. "You cannot imagine what Jin looked like, carrying into my home the dead body of my father. His hands were bloodied, his dagger was bloodied, and my father's chest was soaking with blood."

"But – it was the only way."

Syl shook her head. "No. There is always a way. Had I been there, or if my father had been Jin's father, he or I would have found a way to free the Dark Lord's mind of Balrog's grasp."

Luctor looked confusedly at her. "So you do not think that Jin wantonly slaughtered your father for the position of Dark Lord?"

"At first, when I ran away, I believed so. But as I spent time with myself in the outskirts of Kerning City, avoiding the patrols that Jin sent out looking for me, I decided that he could not have. Jin was always a good man at heart. But he is still responsible for my father's death. He could have saved him."

"How?"

Lady Syl looked at Luctor. "There are many methods of exorcism Jin could have applied. In fact, the Dark Lord had taught us them only a month before. But to dwell in the past for so long is folly. I will make peace with him when this war with the Black Mage is over."

Luctor nodded. "He doesn't hate you, you know."

Lady Syl stared at him. "I know."


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Years ago...**

Afternoon

"_So tell me, son, what's new?" Draqe pours a cup of tea for Luctor. They are sitting in Draqe's old hut, around the table that Luctor had sat next to almost every night for thirteen straight years._  
><em>For once, Luctor is not accompanied by Francis. Both of them are fifteen. The Brigands' Brigands, successful at first, disbanded after two years of robbing robbers and returning the stolen items to their rightful owners. They had been so effective at deterring criminal activity in the El Nath forest that any existing bandits had either fled to other areas or put down their arms and turned to honest work. No one felt much like stealing anymore, knowing that their first encounter with the Brigands' Brigands would invariably be their last.<em>  
><em>So the Brigands' Brigands, for whom business had once boomed, found themselves with nothing to do. Several of them followed fleeing bandits and hunted them down. Some scattered to distant places such as the Korean towns at the base of the Helios tower to form new vigilante groups. Still others had stayed in El Nath to, like the people they had once hunted, take up normal jobs.<em>  
>"<em>Not much," Luctor responds. "There honestly isn't much to do anymore, now that there are no criminals to hunt."<em>  
><em>Draqe sips at his tea. "Ah, the Brigands' Brigands. You've earned quite a reputation, Luctor. I hear you're fifty feet tall and have legs the size of trees."<em>  
><em>Luctor grins. "Folk tales, there's no truth to them."<em>  
>"<em>Why isn't Francis here?" Draqe asks.<em>  
><em>Luctor frowns. "He's looking for work at Lionheart Castle. They won't let us join the Royal Guard on account of age, but Francis thought to search for manual labor there anyways."<em>  
><em>Surprised, Draqe looks at Luctor. "You would join the Royal Guard, given your... past?"<em>  
>"<em>The past is past. My dearest wish is to help the people. Besides, it was only a small group of the Guard that... well, I'm sure not all of them are like that."<em>  
><em>Draqe nods. "A wise decision."<em>  
><em>Luctor's stomach grumbles with hunger, and Draqe immediately notices.<em>  
>"<em>Have you not yet eaten?" he asks.<em>  
><em>Luctor's face reddens. "In truth, not since yesterday."<em>  
>"<em>Well, why don't you go catch a big fish, and I'll cook it up like I used to?"<em>  
><em>Luctor grins at the thought of eating Draqe's cooking for the first time in two years. "Sure, I'll do it. I still remember the way to the lake."<em>

_After an hour of hearing nothing but the crunch of snow beneath his boots, Luctor sees the lake. The surface is coated with ice, as it is the end of winter. Looking at it, Luctor remembers fishing here with Draqe and Francis, each competing with the others to catch the biggest fish. Carrying his old fishing pole, Luctor shivers as the cold penetrates his thick fur coat._  
><em>He walks up to the bank of the lake, inspecting the ice for safe places to step. He knows that one misstep can cause him to plunge into the depths of the lake and kill him with cold, if he doesn't drown first. Mentally sketching a route to ten feet out, Luctor carefully steps onto the ice.<em>  
><em>It does not crack. Luctor takes another step, and another, and another, until he is at his destination. He kneels down and smashes at the icy surface in front of him with his gloved fist, intending to create a hole in which he can fish. His hand bounces off, and there is a small cracking sound.<em>  
><em>Luctor thought back two years, when he had been standing on the shore of this very lake, watching Draqe. Draqe had punched a hole right through the ice with a single blow.<em> I wonder how he did it, _he thinks. Luctor brushes the snow away from the area that he had punched, and sees that there is a small crack. _Well, that's a start.  
><em>Luctor raises his entire arm so it is perpendicular to the ice, then punches down directly at it. The ice cracks violently, but it still does not give way to water. After another try, Luctor's hand is somewhat bruised, but the ice finally breaks. He lifts the ice out of the hole, puts bait on his fishing line, and drops it into the water.<em>  
><em>Ten minutes later, Luctor stands up. The fish he had just caught is satisfactorily big; it will definitely feed both him and Draqe. Luctor turns to walk back to Draqe's hut, about three miles away.<em>  
><em>Fifty minutes later, when he is just half a mile away, Luctor sees a thin plume of smoke rise from the direction of Draqe's cottage. <em>Good, he's begun to boil the water, _Luctor thinks._  
><em>After another two minutes, Luctor once again looks up to the sky. The thin plume of smoke has increased to a huge tower of dark gray; this is certainly not the result of a small cooking fire. Dropping the fish and the fishing rod, Luctor breaks into a sprint for Draqe's hut.<em>  
><em>He arrives a minute later to see Draqe's hut engulfed in flames. Filled with dread, Luctor approaches, but the inferno produces such heat that he dares not to go within ten feet of it. He looks around desperately for any evidence that Draqe escaped the house before the blaze had taken hold, but he finds none.<em>  
>He must be still inside,<em> Luctor mentally groaned. <em>Not again... both my parents, and now Draqe...  
><em>Determined to save Draqe, if he is still alive, Luctor strips down to his underwear, shivering in the cold. He packs as much snow as he can over his head, forming a strange helmet of snow. He spreads snow over his body and ties his shirt over his nose and mouth.<em>  
><em>Luctor takes a deep breath, and daring not to waste any more time, dashes into the house.<em>  
><em>He hears nothing but roars. The inferno quickly melts down the snow upon his skin. The shirt on his mouth does not keep him from inhaling smoke. Every second within the house is a second of pure agony.<em>  
><em>Drenched in melted snow and sweat, Luctor finally spots Draqe. He is in the corner, laying on the floor as if unconscious.<em>  
><em>Luctor grabs Draqe under his arms and drags him out as quickly as he can. Draqe's clothes are on fire; Luctor rolls Draqe in the snow repeatedly until all of the flames are extinguished. Draqe is still breathing. <em>Will he ever wake up again?_ Luctor wonders hopelessly._  
><em>The house continues to burn as Luctor hurriedly puts on his coat to protect him from the cold. His skin is blistered by the fire, but he is too worried about Draqe to care. Ripping his shirt apart, Luctor covers it with snow and lays it down on Draqe's forehead.<em>  
><em>He waits.<em>

Nighttime

_Luctor looks up at the stars and prays. He knows not to who, but he prays for Draqe to awaken and recover. How strange it should be that the last time Luctor had looked upon these stars with Draqe at his side, Draqe had taught him the names and stories of the constellations. Now, he lays there, unmoving and barely breathing._  
><em>The hut had long since stopped burning, but a certain warmth still emanates from it; the embers at the center of the pile of charred wood that was once a house cannot relight the fire, yet they refuse to give up the heat they have left.<em>  
><em>Draqe coughs violently. His eyes open wide and he turns onto his side, hacking up blood. The snow next to him is stained crimson.<em>  
><em>Luctor rushes to Draqe, but stands there, unsure of what to do. He had salvaged the old man's iron pot from the ruins of his house and cooked up the fish that he had caught earlier in the day. Luctor carries to Draqe a bowl of the tasteless but warm soup.<em>  
><em>Draqe grabs the collar of Luctor's coat violently, causing him to drop the bowl of soup. "Luctor," he says. He coughs up blood again.<em>  
>"<em>You inhaled too much smoke, father. Please – do not speak." Luctor tries to pry Draqe's fingers from his coat, but the old man, even so near death, has an iron grip. Luctor gives up. "Please just lay down and rest," he pleads. "You have to get better!"<em>  
><em>Draqe shakes his head. "There – there is a time-" he coughs again "-for everyone. This... this is my time," he says hoarsely. "My death has already... been foretold... the die cast. I do not wish to leave you-"<em>  
>"<em>Then fight it! Fight your fate, father! Simply lie back and allow yourself to recover!" Tears flow freely from Luctor's eyes; he may have witnessed scores of men killed, but he is still only fifteen, and fears the loss of the one adult he has ever looked up to in his life.<em>  
><em>Draqe ignores Luctor. "Listen to me. You – you will become a great man... Luctor. The man who has done this-" Draqe hacks up blood "I feel that it has only just begun – I feel it, Luctor – you will deal with him in the future." He lets go of Luctor, who immediately refills the bowl on the ground and pushes it against Draqe's lips.<em>  
><em>He drinks greedily, sucking up the water as if it would cure him. "Luctor – remember. You and Francis are both my sons." He raises a shaking hand and places it upon Luctor's forehead.<em>  
><em>Luctor loses sight of Draqe. He loses sight of everything. No hut.<em>  
><em>No pot.<em>  
><em>No bowl.<em>  
><em>Just light.<em>  
><em>Bright light.<em>  
><em>And then – the light fades as abruptly as it appeared.<em>

_Luctor is inside Draqe's house. He is tending to a small cooking fire, lit under an iron pot filled with water. When he looks down at his hands, he realizes these are not his hands – these are Draqe's._  
><em>Hoof-beats. Horses outside the door. Luctor turns his head and stands up. He walks outside.<em>  
><em>A group of five men. One dressed in long and flowing dark purple robes, a black butterfly with white spots stamped onto his chest, as intricately woven as the tiger on Luctor's own fan. He is obviously the leader; the others dress in simple tunics.<em>  
><em>The elegant one looks at Luctor coldly. "You are Draqe Zegen, are you not?"<em>  
><em>Luctor tries to speak. <em>No! I am not! _he tries to say. But instead, his mouth opens, and he says, "I am. Who are you?"_  
>"<em>That is of no importance. I was told you have a crystal of certain value in your possession. I wish to have it."<em>  
><em>Luctor shakes his head. "No one can have it, save the person who gave it to me."<em>  
><em>The man looks down at Luctor coldly. "Then we will take it by force."<em>  
><em>Luctor realizes what the man intends to do, but is a fraction of a second too late. The man mutters something under his breath, and Luctor rises up into the air, paralyzed and unable to move his limbs. "You'll never find it," he snarls.<em>  
><em>The man's lip curls in disgust. "We'll see about that." He strides into the hut confidently, and comes out just seconds later.<em>  
>"<em>It's not in there," he informs his cronies. For the first time, he looks worried. He turns to Luctor, who still hangs paralyzed in the air. "Where is it?" he snaps.<em>  
>"<em>I'd rather die than tell you," Luctor snarls.<em>  
><em>The man shakes his head disapprovingly. "Very well." He flicks his hand, and Luctor is tossed into the hut as if he were a rag doll. He blacks out a second later, but not before seeing a ball of fire tossed in.<em>

_Light. Again.  
>Nothing but light.<em>  
><em>And then it fades.<em>  
><em>Luctor falls backwards into the snow, suddenly feeling exhausted. He sits up. Draqe lies on the ground, unconscious once again, but breathing. He crawls forward and places his hand right above Draqe's mouth. He feels a small expulsion of air. The breaths are growing weaker.<em>  
><em>Luctor tries to stay awake to look over Draqe, but fatigue takes over him eventually, and he slumps to the ground, asleep.<em>  
><em>When he wakes up, Draqe breathes no more.<em>

_Day 21_

"Hello? Luctor?" Kyrin waved her hand in front of his face. "Stop zoning out, this is important."

Athena, at the front of her room, sighed exasperatedly. She lifted her hands and rubbed her temples, as if the meeting were giving her a headache. "Please, Luctor, pay attention."

"Sorry, sorry," Luctor mumbled. He had been thinking of Draqe, wondering what would have happened if he hadn't gone out to fish that fateful day.

The corners of Lady Syl's mouth tightened, as if she were hiding a smile. Once again, the Commanders of Victoria Island were gathered in Athena's meeting room.

"May I continue?" Athena asked sarcastically.

Luctor nodded.

"Very well. As I was saying, we need to reevaluate our defenses. We don't need so many fortifications around the individual cities, but defenses for Victoria Island as a whole, especially the Sixtopia Tree."

Evan, who had just been discharged from the hospital the day before, nodded approvingly. "The entire island is at stake, and we're wasting time defending each city."

Athena dipped her head gratefully to Evan. "Thank you. Now that we face attack from almost everywhere except Ereve-"

"Wait, what happened to Orbis?" Aran asked. "Aren't they allied with us?"

Grendel shook his head sadly, and everyone groaned. "The Ellinian fairies were the only ones keeping Orbis tied to us, especially since Orbish fairies are notorious for feeling superior to us Victorian humans. In the mere week that we were cut off from them via the Sixtopia Tree, the Black Mage sent diplomats to Orbis and convinced the fairies to join him against us."

It took a moment for this grave piece of news to sink in. Orbis was quite possibly _the _worst place to have under enemy control, since it was the center of transportation. Without any way to get through Orbis, communications with allies in Ossyria would be difficult to maintain, if not impossible.

Luctor frowned. "Okay, I'm a bit confused. Can we review who's allied with us and who isn't?"

Dances With Balrog consulted briefly with the Dark Lord and Athena, then grunted discontentedly. "Empress of Ereve is with us. Rien is with us, although they're mostly useless penguins over there. Ludibrium and Leafre are with us. Aquatown is too small to matter. Mu Lung, the Korean folk towns, and Herb Town are neutral. Edelstein, El Nath, and Orbis are under enemy control. Magatia is, as always, to divided to decide anything. Ariant _officially_ supports the Black Wings, although the Sand Bandits there fight for us."

The Dark Lord, still sitting down, spoke up. "We're short on equipment; half of my thieves do not have proper armor or weapons."

"My warriors experience the same problem," Dances With Balrog grunted again.

Each of the Commanders except Athena murmured in agreement.

Athena frowned. "What specifically are we missing? My archers have nothing to want when it comes to equipment."

Lady Syl uncrossed her legs and leaned forward in her chair, looking at Athena with her piercing gaze. Her short and boyish black hair hung down slightly over her tilted brown eyes. "Metal. We are short of metal. Archers are relatively unaffected because your armor is leather, and your bows wood. But the rest of us – we need metal, and we need it desperately."

Athena's eyes widened, as if she had just had an epiphany. Then she swore violently. "Damn! I should have known. The three main mines of metal and minerals in the entire world – Edelstein, El Nath, and Ariant – he controls them all!"

Kyrin nodded grimly. "The Black Mage has restricted trade from them to us for months already. The only reason we're feeling the pinch so late is because we had such a surplus left over from years of prosperity."

"So, what are we going to do about it?" Dances With Balrog asked gruffly. "We must seize control of at least one of the mines so we can produce enough equipment for our troops."

"El Nath is too far. We'd have to fight through Orbis just to get there," Grendel said.

"Ariant is closer, but we still would have to conquer Orbis before approaching Ariant," Evan added.

Athena smiled. "I hear Edelstein is nice this time of year. Besides – I've been holding out on you."

Dances with Balrog frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, Edelstein is ripe for the taking." Athena looked at Luctor. "The man that arrived so soon after the retaking of the Sixtopia Tree was a member of the Resistance, sent to Victoria Island to ask for our aid. The Resistance has organized and is ready to strike at the Black Wings and recapture Edelstein, but has too few men to do it without us. Luckily for them, we've smuggled many of our fighters into Edelstein over the past four months – perhaps totaling five hundred. The Resistance currently tallies up to another five hundred able-bodied fighters, and half the city, about twenty thousand people, are Resistance sympathizers.

"They would have struck already, but there is a small problem. The five hundred that we have sent in, due to strict Black Wings-mandated security, could not bring weapons in with them. Grendel believes that he can teleport sufficient weaponry into Edelstein to arm our men, but for one thing. Edelstein has a defense mechanism that does not allow any teleportation from outside its borders to within its borders, and vice versa. The Resistance has asked us to send in someone who, with a squad of the Resistance's choosing, can take out this mechanism. We can only send one person, because it would be too suspicious for a group of people to travel to Edelstein on such short notice."

Each of the Commanders fell silent as they contemplated who to send. For three minutes, the entire room was dead silent; everyone knew that the fate of the world could revolve against this one decision. Finally, Kyrin spoke up.

"You mentioned that we could not get any weapons through security. Will this be a problem again?"

Athena nodded unhappily. "Very much. Edelstein security has only increased, but we will need to see if we can smuggle some weapons in for whoever we choose."

"Then we should send in the best Buccaneer I have. Buccaneers are accustomed to unarmed fighting and will not be deterred by the lack of a weapon."

Athena nodded silently, as did Dances With Balrog and some other Commanders. However, Lady Syl shook her head.

"No. This seems like a job for a thief – someone who can sneak, undetected, into the Black Wings' headquarters and disable the machine. Your Buccaneers are much too noisy to accomplish this job without arousing suspicions within the organization."

Kyrin frowned. "I can see what you mean – but thieves require weapons. Who do you propose we send?"

Lady Syl smiled. "Isn't it obvious? We should send in Luctor. Not only is he one of the best thieves to ever live when it comes to stealth, but his unique upbringing allowed him to become somewhat proficient in the martial arts." She looked at Luctor. "Isn't this true?"

"Yes," Luctor said, somewhat taken aback. Draqe _had_ drilled him in hand-to-hand fighting, but he didn't expect anyone to know of this fact. Part of the training had given Luctor an extensive knowledge of anatomy; after all, in Draqe's words, "The more you understand your enemy, the more easily you can defeat him." Despite all that, he wasn't exactly the best; he was sure any Buccaneer could easily defeat him without weapons. "I still prefer using a fan though."

Athena waved her hand dismissively. "We can discuss smuggling in weapons with our Resistance agent; he will know more details about the security there than I do." She looked around the room. "All in favor of sending Luctor, say aye."

The room resounded with ayes as everyone agreed to send Luctor.

"Very well. Luctor, report back here tomorrow at three o'clock to discuss the details. Everyone is dismissed."

**Day 22: 3:00 PM**

Luctor knocked on Athena's wooden door, wondering exactly what kind of details they would sort out with the Resistance agent.

"Come in," Athena called.

As Luctor entered, she looked up from her desk, where she was writing letters, and seemed surprised to see Luctor. "Goodness, is it three o'clock already? Time seems to flee faster the more you need it. Please, sit down." She swept all her papers together and stacked them on top of the drawer behind her, then went upstairs to bring down the Resistance contact, who was staying in one of her rooms.

She came downstairs with the man that Luctor had met at the Sixtopia Tree. He looked very different; his beard had been completely shaved off, his hair had been trimmed, and he was wearing the leather clothing that more often than not, adorned the body of an Archer.

Athena pulled out a chair, seemingly from out of nowhere, and set it down next to her desk, where Luctor was already sitting. Luctor stood up to greet the man, who held out his hand to shake.

"Mark Guque, at your service," he said gruffly in his Edelsteinian accent. His grip almost crushed Luctor's fingers before he summoned the strength in his fingers to squeeze back.

"Luctor Zegen," Luctor responded.

Mark sat down next in the chair Athena had placed down, and Athena sat down in her customary chair. "Mark, please explain the procedure to Luctor."

"Listen carefully, Luctor, for details are of the utmost importance when it comes to deception." He paused and seemed to think of something. "Please vacate your bowels and bladder right now so you can sit for a long period of time without interruption."

Athena sighed. "Mark, we don't say that here on Victoria Island. We ask people to go to the bathroom."

"I don't need to go to the bathroom," Luctor said.

"Very well. I will begin then. Luctor, from now on, you are not Luctor. You are Hugh von Richter, a twenty-five year old businessman that buys ores from the mines of Edelstein, El Nath, and Ariant. Your father is half Edelsteinian, half Victorian, and was born on Victoria Island. Your mother is full Victorian. Your grandfather was Edelsteinian, but emigrated to Victoria Island in the job crunch sixty years ago. You were born in Kerning City into the middle class." Mark waved a stack of papers in front of Luctor's face. "Your life details are in here. Look over it tomorrow.

"As for business, you own a small share of the mine in Sleepywood. You used to own the entire company that controlled the mine, but you sold most of it off three years ago when it failed to yield a profit. You own the two biggest refineries in Kerning City. You're currently losing money fast because of a lack of ores from the main mines, and you're looking to slow down this downward spiral by buying as much ore as you can, as soon as possible. Are you OK with this?"

"Um... Hugh von Richter, twenty-five, ore businessman, yeah, got it. Keep going."

Mark stared at Luctor. "You must commit every detail to memory." He paused and looked up at the ceiling, trying to recall what Luctor needed to know. "When you get to Edelstein, it will be around five o'clock. An Black Wings will accompany you everywhere as an escort. You have a reservation at the Poki Hotel. At seven o'clock, a contact will arrive in the lobby of the Poki Hotel. He will be under the guise of a businessman who will be selling you the ores from the Edelsteinian Mines. There will be a code.

"First, you will ask him how much the ores will cost, per pound. If he says the price is the same as the one you last agreed upon, then the time of the meeting with the next contact will be eight o'clock in the morning. If he says that the cost has changed, it will be whatever the price he names is. For example, if he says the cost has changed to 1,600 mesos per ore, the time of the meeting has been changed to four o'clock in the afternoon. Do you understand?"

Luctor nodded.

"The next part is the address. He will talk to you about the amount of ore he will sell you, in pounds. We could not decide on an address before I was sent, so however many pounds he wishes to sell you is the number of the address. For example, if he says he wishes to sell you 2846.5 pounds of ore, then the address is 28465. He will give you a piece of paper to sign. On this piece of paper is the man's name. He will have already signed the paper. The street name of the address will be the last name that he signed on the paper."

"Alright."

"That is all I can tell you about the meeting. Good luck, and remember it all."

Mark stood up to leave, but Athena told him to wait. "We have one more issue. Luctor's weapon."

Mark looked confusedly at Athena for a couple of seconds before a look of comprehension settled into his face. "Ah, you wish to smuggle his weapons in."

Athena dipped her head.

"Well, the best way to smuggle a weapon is to disguise it as something harmless. Let's see your weapon, Luctor."

Luctor took out his fan and placed it gently on the table. Handling it gingerly, Mark picked it up and spread it open. The sharp edges of the fan glinted menacingly, although next to the the golden tiger weaved into the fan's fabric, the steel frames looked as reflective as a brick.

"Hm..." Mark placed the fan back down onto the desk and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps we should just hide it in a compartment. Since it's relatively flat when spread out, we should have no problem hiding it in a folded coat or something. Anyways," he continued, looking at Athena, "I'll take Luctor out to get brown contact lens and wealthy-looking clothes, like a suit. Several suits. He has to look the part as well as act it."

For three hours, Luctor was accompanied by Mark to a plastic surgeon for contact lenses, and then to the Kerning City Mall to shop for clothes.


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Day 24**

Incessant knocking on the door woke him up. Luctor was once again staying in Athena Pierce's tree, because, as she explained, _someone_ had to make sure he looked proper for the day ahead. The bed, again, comfortable. The noise, again, nonexistent.

Staying in Henesys sure was different than staying in the Sitcha Hotel in Kerning City.

Another couple of knocks on the door, and Luctor groaned. "I'm getting dressed," he said, curled up beneath the covers on the bed. No more knocks. _Ugh... why does the ship have to leave so early?_

He got out of bed and dressed up. Spotless white shirt, black pants, shiny black leather shoes, a black jacket, a ridiculous-looking tall hat, and a long trench coat over his jacket. Luctor almost rubbed his eyes before he remembered the plastic surgeon's instructions to not touch them, however much they might itch.

He walked out of the room into the bathroom down the hall, looking at himself in the mirror. Even though the plastic surgeon hadn't even done any surgery, Luctor thought he didn't look like Luctor anymore; a good thing, considering the fact that he _wasn't _supposed to be Luctor. Brown eyes? Neatly trimmed hair, dyed blonde? No sir, this was not Luctor in the mirror. This was Hugh von Richter, rich twenty-five year old businessman who grew up in Kerning City.

Luctor walked back to his room, where he glanced at the clock. 3:49. The sun hadn't even risen yet outside the window; it was still completely dark. He wished he didn't have to wake up this early, that the ride left at 10 AM instead of 5 AM, but, like Mark said, "A schedule is a schedule, and the pilots follow the schedule." After all, the distance between Edelstein and Victoria Island meant they were in different time zones, three hours apart. Over there, in Edelstein, it was already 6:49.

Picking up the suitcase next to his bed, Luctor walked downstairs. The aroma of sweet cinnamon caressed his nostrils, and he saw two steaming pieces of bread, baked by none other than Athena Pierce, laying on a plate. As he set down the suitcase and began to eat, she inspected him, then nodded, satisfied that he looked like Hugh von Richter.

"C'mon, the taxi's waiting outside," she said. "We have to go now, it'll take about an hour to get to the tree. Take the plate, you can eat on the way over."

Once in the taxi, Athena handed Luctor's boarding pass to him and reviewed the details of his fake identity with him in hushed voices. "Remember," she said as he got out of the car, "to take the fan out as soon as possible." She glanced to the front of the vehicle, at the dashboard of the taxi. "It's already 4:53. We'd better hurry."

Luctor nodded, picked up his suitcase, and, closing the door behind him, stepped out into the crisp morning air of Victoria Island. He looked to the Sixtopia Tree, where the ship, or, rather, balloon, would depart from to Edelstein.

The Sixtopia Tree, after just a little over one week of being free from the hands of the Black Wings, had been refitted with landing lights. Four extremely strong lights, one on each cardinal direction, sat on the ground, lighting up the Sixtopia Tree brighter than a tree decorated for Maplemas. On the three docks that jutted out from the side of the tree were strung smaller, but many more numerous lights. From the windows in the tree, light radiated as if the sun itself hung inside of it.

Luctor, accompanied by Athena, walked inside the tree and made his way up to the Edelstein ship. It was a strange-looking thing – the actual ship was suspended by numerous amounts of clear, glistening rope from a gigantic balloon – a hundred feet long and forty feet wide at the middle, by Luctor's estimate. A man stood beside a single plank protruding from the side of the ship onto the dock.

Before they could step out onto the wooden dock, the world shook. Everything shook, save the ship floating in the air. Even the Sixtopia Tree, a symbol of stability and endurance, shook violently. Leaves from above fluttered calmly down through the air, but anything anchored to the ground shivered as if something had scared it.

After a couple of seconds, it was over. The man on the dock, who had flattened himself upon the wood with a look of terror upon his face, stood up and brushed himself off.

Athena pushed Luctor forward. "Hurry and get on the ship."

Walking up to the man, Luctor held out his boarding pass, which the man promptly ripped into shreds and tossed into the wind. He gave Luctor back a single shred of his ticket, which had the number 15 on it, then bowed and swept his arms in an exaggerated motion towards the ship, making Luctor feel unsure if he was being mocked or very enthusiastically honored.

As Luctor stepped onto the ship, the man who took his ticket followed him, and pulled the plank back onto the ship. He screamed at the pilot, who stood at the back of the ship, behind a wheel, "ALL ABOARD, CAP'N! READY TO TAKE OFF!" He then turned to Luctor and pointed to a set of stairs that led down into the interior of the ship. "Down b'low, ser, are de first class passenger cabins. Assigned cabin numb'r is on yer ticket."

Luctor nodded his thanks and made his way down to cabin 15, which had a clean bed, a desk, two lamps as well as a large light in the middle of the room, a chair, and good sized cauldron, presumably for going to the bathroom. A single rectangular window with hinges on the side opened out into the black sky.

Still tired, Luctor collapsed into his bed at once and fell soundly asleep.

After an hour or so, Luctor woke up. The sky outside the window seemed to be a bit brighter; perhaps the sun was rising. He got out of bed, put his trench coat back on, and walked up to the deck, where the pilot was still dutifully steering the ship. Victoria Island and its brightly lit Sixtopia Tree was just a speck in the distance; except for that, there was nothing except ocean, ocean, and ocean. The curvature of the world, which Luctor had only heard about before, was truly astonishing to see.

There were few clouds in the air, and the ship was level with them, sailing around them instead of through them. Luctor reached out over the edge of the ship and touched one – it was slightly cooler and more moist than the air around it, but it felt nothing like the fluffy cotton he expected it to feel like.

It was pretty cold up here; Luctor was glad he was wearing so many clothes, however uncomfortably inflexible they were. Before his eyes, the sky was painted an assortment of gold, blue, purple, red, and orange.

_I've never seen a sunrise from so high above,_ he said to himself.

"Hullo, ser, is there something I can provide you with, ser?" the crewman from before asked Luctor amiably.

Luctor glanced in surprise at him. "Oh, no thanks, I'm just looking at the sunrise." He turned around again and looked at the slowly rising golden orb, which had already shone its first rays at the ship so high above the ground.

"'s something I see ev'ry day, ser, but 's amazin' ev'ry time I see it."

They watched the sun rise completely above the horizon in silence, spellbound by its beauty.

"There's nothin' like it, ser."

Luctor turned around to face him. "Indeed. What's your name?"

"Herman, ser."

"Herman, how long until we reach Edelstein?"

The crewman looked up at the sky, thinking for a couple of seconds. "Erm, by my estimate, 'bout six hours 'nd forty minutes, ser."

"Don't you serve breakfast on board?"

"Ain't ready yet, ser. Most passengers don't git up fer 'nother hour."

"Do you mind telling me why you have a balloon on this ship, instead of using elevatium engines?"

Herman looked surprised at the question. Evidently, most passengers did not ask about the mechanics of the ship. "Well, elevatium's expensive as heck, ser. 's better to use a balloon 'nd propellers to move. Course, we got backup engines with elevatium in case the balloon blows."

Luctor nodded. It made sense; even though elevatium had zero purposes outside of making things travel or float, it was by far more expensive than lidium, used for imbuing magical properties into items, or orihalcon, the hardest ore in existence. "What do you use to power the propellers?"

"Lightning. Specially made ships go up in storms and catch lightning in barrels, and we use that as fuel for ev'rythin' up here."

Luctor nodded again and grasped one of the the inch-thick ropes suspending the ship from the balloon. It was opaque and colorless – Luctor expected it to feel cold, smooth, and hard, like glass, but instead, it felt somewhat furry and stringy. It wasn't at all cold to touch, and, like rope, it was wound in coils.

"What are these ropes made out of?" he asked.

"Trixt'r thread, ser. Ludibrians harvest the cobwebs and spin it into this rope. 's at least fifty times stronger than normal rope, and lasts fifty times longer 's well."

"It's an amazing ship," Luctor murmured.

With a hint of pride, Herman responded, "We Edelsteinians develop'd and perfect'd balloon ships, even when the other shipbuild'rs sneered at us fer bein' foolish 'nd wastin' time."

The rest of the trip passed by without event; they ran into no foul weather or anything of the sort. The breakfast they served was delicious, consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon, bread, and soup. Lunch was even better, with smoked fish, hamburgers, hot dogs, and salads. At 3:56 PM, Edelsteinian time, the ship landed at the Edelstein ship-port.

Luctor said good-bye to Herman, who he had talked with quite a bit over the course of the trip, picked up his suitcase, put on his trench coat, and walked down the gangplank towards the waiting crowd, in which were many people holding up signs with unfamiliar Edelsteinian script.

"Mr. von Richter!" one such man was yelling. Luctor headed towards him. When he saw Luctor walking towards him, the man put down the sign and held out his hand to shake. "Hello, Mr. von Richter, I am Kaza, and I will be your assigned escort in the grand city of Edelstein!" he had to yell to make himself heard over the sea of people inside the ship-port.

Kaza was a moderately tall man, at perhaps about five feet ten inches, with brown eyes. He wore a black cap with a dark gray circle on the front, in which was a black butterfly with white spots on its wings. The same emblem was on the right arm of his black jacket, as well as his pants. With his friendly eyes and somewhat round and clean-shaved face, he reminded Luctor of Evan.

"I am Hugh von Richter!" Luctor responded, equally as loud as Kaza.

"We have to go through security!" Kaza yelled back, pointing at the long lines that stood before some metal gates.

As Luctor made to move in line, however, Kaza grabbed his arm. "I'm your escort, so we can skip to the front of the line," he explained. He led Luctor to the front of the line, tipped his hat at the inspector standing behind a table, and pushed Luctor in front of the table.

The inspector, unlike Kaza, had a white goatee. He pointed at Luctor's suitcase and ordered gruffly, "Put it on the table."

Luctor obeyed, opened it up, and pushed it towards the inspector. He watched nervously as the inspector shuffled through its contents.

His heart leaped with terror when the inspector held up the light brown envelope that contained his fan. "What's this?"

As instructed, Luctor lied, "It's an envelope with my potions in it. I have to keep it sealed, or the air will spoil it. You can feel the shape of the bottles in it."

The inspector felt the hard bottle-shaped items in the envelope, then grunted, satisfied. He put the envelope back in the suitcase, closed it up, and slid it back across the table to Luctor. He then pointed at another inspector, who was standing beside a small pedestal. "Move to the pat-down. Next!"

The second inspector found nothing suspicious, so Luctor and his escort moved right along through the ship-port.

"I have a taxi waiting outside, sir, ready to take you to the Poki hotel, where I believe you have a reservation," Kaza said.

"Oh, hang on, I have to go to the bathroom," Luctor said. He carried his suitcase into the bathroom and locked himself in a stall. Once in there, he put the toilet cover down and opened his suitcase on top of it. He took out the paper envelope and ripped it open, and carefully removed his fan.

Around the fan was placed three bottles made out of strange materials with no bottoms or tops – the fan went right through all three of them. Instead of feeling the fan, the inspector had felt the bottles in the envelope, just as Mark Guque had planned.

Luctor removed the bottles from the fan and flushed the bottles down the toilet, as Mark had instructed. Just as he said, the bottles instantly began dissolving once they went into the water. Luctor tucked the fan into his inner jacket, feeling much more secure now that he had his fan.

_Somewhere_

Dirt. Dirt surrounded him. Dirt pressed down upon his body. He saw nothing, heard nothing. There was nothing but dirt. The entire weight of the world seemed to be on his chest, yet it felt comforting, like the pressing weight of several warm blankets.

He took a breath, and the earth breathed with him. For all the dirt there was, none fell into his mouth or nose. The dirt lifted with his chest; he did not have to strain to breathe.

It was comforting. Yet he felt trapped. Something did not feel right. Didn't he have to do something? He shifted, and the earth shifted. He willed the earth to move him to the surface, and it obeyed.

_Poki Hotel, Edelstein. 6:45 PM, local time._

Luctor had just eaten a dinner at the Pokie Hotel's restaurant. The local Edelsteinian cuisine was unfamiliar, but delicious nonetheless. He had conversed with Kaza over the course of dinner, finding out that, like a normal man, Kaza had a wife and children.

He had seemed pleasant enough; but Luctor had reminded himself that Kaza was an enemy, a follower of the Black Wings. _But why? Why is he an enemy? Why does he support the Black Mage?_ Luctor had asked himself. _Such a man, who enjoys life as it is... why?_

Perhaps Kaza was nothing more than a gold-digger, who joined the Black Wings simply for the money and prestige that would come from being a member of the dominant power. Perhaps he had done so because he had been poor, and wanted to support his family. _But it doesn't matter,_ Luctor had reminded himself. _An enemy is an enemy, regardless of reasons._

Luctor and his escort walked up to Luctor's room, a large and luxurious penthouse on the top floor of the hotel. It consisted of three bedrooms; Luctor would sleep in one, and Kaza would sleep in one of the others. His escort seemed to take on the role of a bodyguard, following Luctor everywhere.

As Luctor looked out the huge window in the living room of the penthouse, he noticed what seemed to be a parade – a rather gloomy one, anyways. A man, his hands bound behind his back and eyes covered with a black cloth, was being led down the street by a group of ten men, all dressed exactly the same as Kaza.

"What's this?" he asked Kaza.

The escort, seated next to the window reading a book, glanced towards the procession, then looked back down at his book. "A criminal."

The prisoner stumbled over something in the road and fell to the ground. After kicking him a couple of times, one of the guards roughly picked the man up and pushed him along. A crowd was forming, following the group closely, yet they left ten feet of empty space between themselves and the guards.

"What are they going to do to him?" Luctor asked.

"They're going to hang him."

Luctor looked down at the man stumbling along the cobblestone street. He didn't look like a man who would commit a crime heinous enough to deserve a death sentence. "What did he do?"

"Judging from past events, he's guilty of manslaughter," Kaza said in the same monotonic, uninterested voice.

"You-you hang for manslaughter?" Luctor asked, horrified.

Kaza sighed and put down his book on the coffee table. "Not normally, no. But he killed a Black Wings member – and that would make twenty Black Wings deaths this week, all from 'manslaughter.' The Resistance is careful – they make the deaths look like accidents. We all know it's murder, but we can't prove anything, and we _do_, whatever the Resistance may think, try to follow the law. So we inserted an amendment, making the harshest punishment for manslaughter death by hanging. Of course, any manslaughter that doesn't involve the Black Wings gets a couple of years in prison, as normal."

The procession moved along, and Luctor watched them until they disappeared from his sight. _They try to follow the law? What about all the oppression and injustice I've been hearing about? If the Black Wings are just, then why does the Resistance fight against them?_ Luctor shook his head. _I'm getting information from a Black Wing. Of course the information will make the Black Wings look good._

"I don't understand why the Resistance fights against us," Kaza murmured as if he had read Luctor's thoughts. "We provide everything that they could want... They're nothing more than a terrorist organization."

Luctor sat down in the chair directly opposite from Kaza and picked up his leather-bound "diary." He opened it and scribbled a rough drawing of the man in front of him and looked at it. It was crudely done, since Luctor hadn't drawn in over a hundred years. Just looking at it made him feel a sense of longing and loss. _Draqe... Francis..._

"The meeting's at seven, right?" Kaza asked. He leaned forward curiously at the sight of the expression on Luctor's face, trying to get a look at whatever he was looking at.

Luctor closed the little book and nodded.

"We'd better head down, then. We'll want to get a table."

Luctor picked up his suitcase, buttoned his jacket, and walked downstairs with Kaza. He frowned. All the tables in the lobby were filled up.

"Don't worry," Kaza winked. He walked up to a group of four men sitting in two sofas around a wooden table, and said something to them. He touched his hat, and the men shuddered. They stood up and left. Kaza beckoned to Luctor, who walked over to him and sat down in a sofa.

"What's the name of the guy you're meeting?" Kaza asked.

"Um... Torst Manra."

Kaza walked up to the front desk and said something to the hotel receptionists, then came back. "I just told them to tell Torst to come here once he comes in."

Then they waited, reading the glossy-covered magazines set on the table in front of them. They didn't wait too long though, because before long, a mustached man followed by two men in suits – without the Black Wings emblem – walked up to Luctor with a suitcase in his hand.

Luctor immediately stood up and shook the man's hand vigorously. "Mr. Manra, a pleasure to see you."

"Likewise, Mr. von Richter." Mr. Manra's voice was deep and comforting.

_He ought to voice over for nature documentaries,_ Luctor thought.

"So, right to business?" Luctor asked, voice shaking. He slapped himself mentally, telling himself to steel up his nerves; it wasn't as if this was the first time he had pretended to be someone else.

"Of course, Mr. von Richter. I know you've had quite a long flight and must be very tired, so we should get this over with as quickly as possible."

"So, the price. Per pound. How much will it be?"

"Well, Mr. von Richter, I believe we last agreed upon 800 mesos per pound. I believe this is a suitable price, so I will not push for any change. Will you, Mr. von Richter?"

"No, I am content with it."

Mr. Manra nodded. "Of course; it is a fair price. Now, I'm afraid the amount that I will ship to you has changed. We last agreed upon 6,000 pounds, but one of my ships has gone in for maintenance, so I can only ship 3,275.6 pounds. Are you OK with this?"

"Yes." _Eight o'clock, 32756... what street?_

"Now, I have a contract for you to sign, Mr. von Richter. It contains all of the adjustments we made to our last arrangement." He unbuckled his suitcase and opened it. In it was a paper, a pen, and a clipboard. He handed all three to Luctor, and pointed at the bottom of the paper. Two horizontal lines for signatures. One was already filled in. "Please sign here."

Luctor signed at the bottom of the page, simultaneously deciphering the elegant handwriting above where he was signing: Torst Park. _Alright, I've got it all. Eight o'clock. 32756 Park._

Mr. Manra stood up and bowed. "As always, a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. von Richter."

Everyone left; Manra and his bodyguards exited the hotel, while Luctor and Kaza walked back upstairs to their room in silence.

"Nice man," Kaza said as he opened the door to their room. "So, that was it? You just came here to do a business deal?"

"Yeah. We usually communicate by letters, but I prefer to meet in person when sealing the final deal," Luctor recited from memory. "Anyways, I've always wanted to go to Edelstein, the land of my grandfather."

"When is your return flight again?"

"Haven't booked it yet. I'll probably stay a week or so just to see the sights."

Kaza nodded. "There's a lot to see in Edelstein. Any idea where you want to go tomorrow?"

_I have to be at 32756 Park at eight o'clock. _"Oh, I haven't decided. Do you have any maps of Edelstein?"

"Yeah, right here." Kaza opened a drawer in the coffee table and passed it to Luctor.

Sitting down on the sofa with the back of the map to Kaza, Luctor began to search for Park. _Park Street? Park Avenue? Park..._ And then he saw it.

32756 PARK STREET  
>EDELSTEIN PARK<p>

"Well, how about Edelstein Park? We can go over there in the morning."

"Yeah, beautiful place. You don't want to leave Edelstein without visiting that first."

The wheels were in motion.

**Day 25**

"_Luctor? What's wrong?" Francis asks. They stand outside of the Lionheart Castle, the residence of the Red King Von Leon._  
><em>Luctor had buried Draqe an hour after he woke up, tears dripping from his face. They had frozen as they fell down into the snow; it looked as if it had rained diamonds around Luctor. He had sat by Draqe's final resting place for two days.<em>  
><em>He had eaten, but he had eaten very little. Luctor had no appetite for anything, not even life. His father was gone. What did he have left?<em>  
><em>Francis. He had a brother left. He had lost a father, but he still had his father. Perhaps there was hope yet.<em>  
><em>Luctor's voice shakes; something that has not happened for years. "You – you-" Luctor swallows. He can't say it.<em>  
>"<em>Well? You know you can tell me anything, Luctor. We're brothers, after all." But beneath that warm, comforting voice lies fear – what had happened when Luctor had visited Draqe? Should he, Francis, had gone with him? After what the two boys had seen in their life, Francis had not thought it possible that Luctor could be shocked by anything – and yet, here he is. Shaking. Miserable. In a word, broken.<em>  
>"<em>Draqe. He's dead. He's been killed," Luctor finally chokes out. Fresh tears springs from his eyes, and he sits down, sobbing like a three year old. Francis pales and leans against the cold stone of the castle wall.<em>  
>"<em>Impossible," Francis whispers. "Draqe... we learned everything we know from him... he's – well, he's invincible!"<em>  
><em>Luctor raises his head from between his knees. "What are we going to do, Francis?"<em>  
>"<em>We are going to find the man who killed our father," Francis spits out, "and we will make him suffer for his crime."<em>  
>"<em>But – we aren't – he killed Draqe, Francis! He'll kill us in seconds!"<em>  
><em>Francis closed his eyes. He said nothing as he felt the wind blow at him. He wished it would sweep right through him, taking all his sorrows, frustrations, angers...<em>

"_Francis," Draqe said. Luctor was asleep; Draqe wanted to talk to Francis, his true son, alone. It was the night before the two brothers had left to find their way in the world. They were thirteen._  
>"<em>Yes, father?"<em>  
><em>Draqe motioned to the table, where a single candle stood, casting a flickering light over everything. The shadows danced with the flame; the movement was mesmerizing, and Francis could have watched the dance of the shadows for twenty-four hours and not once be bored. He sat down at the table, still watching the shadows.<em>  
>"<em>Francis, my son. Before you two leave, I wish to tell you something."<em>  
>"<em>What is it?"<em>  
>"<em>Say nothing of this to Luctor. Swear it."<em>  
><em>Francis swore it.<em>  
><em>Draqe sighed. "Francis, you<em> must _stay with Luctor. You two must never separate. I fear some strong consequence if you do. You two balance each other: you both have a strong sense of right and wrong, of justice and injustice. But you, my son, are more adaptable. You are more welcoming to new ideas, new ways to pursue your goal. Luctor is less so, and more conservative. Together, you two make decisions that meet in the middle: neither rash nor overcautious._  
>"<em>I do not know why this is so important for you to know, but I<em> feel _it, son. You must stay with Luctor. You two are brothers, north and south, east and west, hot and cold. You fit together like two puzzle pieces."_

_At the time, Francis had no idea what Draqe was rambling on about, but now... now he knows. It is the fundamental difference between the two of them._  
>Fine, <em>Francis thinks. <em>We will not avenge him. No matter what I do, Luctor must do it with me.

"Well," Luctor muttered, "where are you?"

He was walking in Edelstein Park at 7:59 AM, just one minute before he was scheduled to meet with the Resistance contact. And yet, he could see no one. _Well,_ he consoled himself, _they have to blend in or they'll be caught. Of course I wouldn't be able to spot any of them._

Kaza, as always, was accompanying Luctor, although today, he stayed ten feet behind him, trailing the fake businessman instead of walking right next to him. _He probably doesn't want to talk to me._ But what did he care? It was best if he didn't become too emotionally attached to the man – after all, he _was_ working for the enemy.

Edelstein Park, as Kaza had said, was beautiful. Flowers of thousands of different hues blossomed fully in the boxes next to the stone paths as if Aphrodite herself had walked here. Small rolling hills covered with crisp grass exuded a fresh smell through the air, making the entire place feel as if it would take away Luctor's years and replace it with complete youth. Full-grown trees, with their widely stretched branches and broad leaves, spread shade over the tops of the hills. About a quarter of a mile away was a lake, winking with reflected sunlight.

Luctor was suddenly pushed back by a man whose face was obscured by sunglasses and a very wide black hat. He wore a long khaki coat.

"Apologies," he muttered before walking away briskly. Kaza held out an arm as if to stop the man as he walked by, but then seemed to think twice and pulled it back in.

He jogged up to Luctor's side. "Do you still have your wallet? There's a lot of pickpockets around now," he explained. "A lot of them are from the Resistance; they steal money to fund their activities."

Luctor's mouth opened as he checked his pockets for his wallet. He didn't have his wallet, but... he closed his mouth abruptly. "I forgot, I left my wallet at the hotel."

"Oh, alright. Keep an eye out for pickpockets," Kaza cautioned. He withdrew to ten feet behind Luctor again as they continued to walk.

Luctor _had _left his wallet at the hotel, so when he came, his pockets were empty. But now... there was a weight in his left pocket, the side that the man had brushed against so rudely. _Could it be a message?_

Putting his hands nonchalantly into his pocket as if his fingers were cold, Luctor felt out the object in his pocket. It was a stone – a good-sized one too, about four inches wide and relatively flat. It felt sandy and rough, as if it were made of thousands of grains of coarse sand.

Luctor took it out of his pocket, taking care to not let Kaza see that he was holding something in his hand. In the corner of his eye, Luctor saw that the rock was made out of the same material as the bottles that had gone around his fan – light brown and grainy, it had the appearance of a very strangely made clay.

There were words engraved on the rock:

1:30 AM TOMORROW  
>73581 KLENX DRIVE<br>LOSE THE INSECT  
>DISPOSE MESSAGE IN LAKE<p>

Luctor read the message several times over, committing it to memory. _1:30 AM... that's in the dead of night! What does it mean by "LOSE THE INSECT?"_ Everything except the third line of that message was crystal clear – time, place, and the lake-water would dissolve the rock. But "LOSE THE INSECT?"

He pondered what it could possibly mean as he walked towards the lake. _Insect... six legs... small... insect... insects are bugs. Am I bugged?_

It was a possibility; there were many instances in which Kaza could have slipped a small listening or tracking device into Luctor's clothes. When he was sleeping, for instance. But "LOSE THE INSECT..." it didn't feel right. Lose the bug? It sounded like he was talking to a person – a person who was _following _him, _trailing_ him...

_Kaza! Of course! "Insect" is the butterfly emblem on Kaza's cap! They want me to get rid of Kaza before I meet them!_

Luctor bent down to a knee on the rocky bank of the lake, and pretended to search among the stones. With his left hand, he discreetly placed the message down on the ground, then picked it up with his right hand.

_Perfect shape when it comes to skipping stones,_ he thought. _My only trouble would be if it skipped all the way across the lake!_

Luctor laughed and threw the rock at as flat as angle as he could manage. One, two, three, four, five, six skips it flew, dancing across the water, as if it were defying gravity, as if it were defying the very laws the world was based upon.

That beat his all-time best of five skips at the lake in El Nath... when he had been with Draqe and Francis. The three of them, a family. That was the last time he had skipped stones.

And then it splashed through the surface of the lake, leaving nothing but a froth of bubbles as the perfect skipping stone dissolved into the water.


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Day 26**

Luctor knocked three times, as softly as he could, on the door of 73581 Klenx Drive. It was precisely 1:32 AM, as his watch attested; he had arrived two minutes after he was supposed to. Getting out of the hotel was no easy task; Luctor knew that there were guards; Black Wings as well as independently hired guards stood vigil outside all the exits of the hotels.

Except one. Well, actually, except a _hundred,_ but Luctor only needed one. He had slid open the window in his hotel room as quietly as he could (the squeaky thing had almost given Luctor a heart attack when he first tried to open it.), slipped out wearing his more comfortable and stealthy Chrysian wool clothes, and climbed to the rooftop of the building. From there, it had been a simple matter to travel via rooftops to his destination, half a mile away, as the map of Edelstein had promised.

_Come on! I'm only two minutes late!_

But still no answer...

He looked up at the building, where a single window was open three floors up. The building itself, an apartment complex, was five stories tall, as were all the buildings around. But none of them... none of them had their windows open as obnoxiously as this one. It seemed so out of place – it seemed–

_Deliberate. They want me to climb up there. They want me to prove I can help._

Luctor laughed as he used the ledges on the wall to get to the open window and slip through it; this was absurdly easy, considering his more dangerous maneuvers in the past had included jumping off cliffs. Then he abruptly stopped laughing, as soon as he was inside. It was completely dark and seemingly uninhabited; no light, no people, no greetings...

A shadow shifted to his left. Narrowing his eyes, Luctor turned to his right, letting whoever it was think he had not seen...

_Misdirection._

A whoosh as a fist flew through the air–

Another whoosh as Luctor turned around and blocked it–

_Interception. Let's turn the tables now..._

Yet another whoosh as another fist flew at his face–

Luctor grabbed the attacker's wrist instantly and pulled his arm, smashing him into the wall behind him–

_Retaliation._

Luctor threw a punch at the man's head, but he was already gone, somersaulting away and reaching into his coat–

A light switch was flipped, and the entire room was bathed in light; Luctor's eyes felt a little uncomfortable as they adjusted. He turned around and saw that his attacker was the man from Edelstein Park who had slipped the message stone into his pocket. He was still wearing the same clothing: long khaki coat, wide black hat, and black sunglasses.

In his hand was a small green and yellow crossbow, pointing straight at Luctor's face.

Another man was standing next to the wall, where the light switch was. "Well, will he do?" he asked gruffly.

"He's more skilled than I expected."

_That voice..._ Luctor wouldn't have believed that the voice had come from the man – if indeed that was a man – in front of him. It sounded... feminine. Familiar. But he couldn't place it...

And then everything snapped into place; the crossbow – no, it wasn't a crossbow, it was a bowgun – in the man's – no, the woman's – hand, the voice–

"Mercedes?" Luctor asked tentatively. _Could it be Mercedes? Mercedes, the Hero of Bowmen? The Mercedes that I knew one hundred years ago?_

"How do you-" she began, then stopped. "Who are you?"

Luctor took the absence of a reply to be an affirmation. "It – it's me, Luctor!"

In shock, Mercedes let her bowgun lower itself by a few inches, then shook her head and raised it again at Luctor's face. She took off her hat and sunglasses, revealing her pointed elfin ears and slanted sapphire eyes. Her entire being exuded confusion; her eyebrows were scrunched up, her mouth opened slightly, her left arm hung at her side, and her head was tilted backwards as she looked at Luctor.

"Impossible... he has white eyes and brown hair..." She paused. "But hair can be dyed and eyes can be covered with lenses..."

"It's me, Luctor! We fought the Black Mage together! I was with Aran in Henesys, and then that Resistance person came, Mark Guque, and–"

Mercedes cut him short, squeezing the rest of his words right out of his lungs with a tight bear hug. "I thought I'd never see you again!" she squealed happily. Her eyes were moist, and Luctor could see what could have been a tear forming at the corner of her eye before she blinked it away.

"It's so good to see you!" she sighed blissfully, a stupid smile on her face as if she were drunk.

"What's this?" A pale man with long black hair spilling from his head walked into the room, rolling up the sleeves on his suit. "Ah, but don't I know you? Luctor, wasn't it?"

"YOU!" the Thief snarled in reply. He pushed Mercedes behind him roughly, snapped his fan open, and sprung at the newcomer with the viciousness of a tiger.

He brought his fan down at the man's throat in what could have been a fatal strike, but the man blocked Luctor's hand from getting any farther than his shoulder, grabbing Luctor's wrist with his left hand. A three-foot long scepter appeared in the man's other hand, which he then used to hit Luctor in the stomach with, sending him flying back against the wall.

The man clicked his tongue as if he were disappointed, smiling coolly at Luctor. "Luctor, Luctor, as incompetent as always."

Mercedes, who had been watching with a hand over her mouth, motioned for the light-switch-man to back down. "What's going on, Luctor?"

Luctor gestured wildly at the man. "Don't you recognize him? It's Desla, the Black Mage's right-hand man! He's one of his generals!"

"Incompetent _and_ clueless. You haven't changed a bit, Luctor."

"Stop it, Desla," Mercedes snapped before turning to Luctor. "Desla's turned to our side. He's helping the Resistance."

It was Luctor's turn to gape blankly, and he did so at Mercedes with gusto. "Why would _he_ join _us_? What does _he_ gain by-"

"Well, revenge, for one," Desla said, minus the smug expression he had been wearing just three seconds before.

In its place was an expression of sorrow, of loss. Of pain. Luctor knew all three emotions all too well. Had something really happened between Desla the Demon Slayer and the Black Mage? Was it extreme enough to alienate one of his best men?

"I'd rather not talk about it," Desla said. "I'm going out to set the charges. Ask Mercedes if you're so interested." He tapped the top of his own head with his own weapon, and his entire form rippled. When it had settled, he looked like a maintenance man. He waved to Luctor and walked out the door.

"Why is he here?" Luctor asked as soon as the door banged shut.

"He – I can't say it, Luctor, it's just... it's just too horrible..."

Luctor sighed, then looked up at light-switch-man. "Who's this?"

"Oh, that's Scilo. He's part of the team."

"Um... team. Uh-huh."

"Oh, right, we still have quite a bit of stuff to go over. Please, sit down," Mercedes said, gesturing towards what was probably a dinner table. "Scilo, please bring out the maps and close the window."

As Luctor sat down, Scilo shut the window, pulled a gigantic map out of nowhere, and set it down on the table. It was crisp and new; they probably had several replicas of the same map. It wasn't of Edelstein itself, Luctor knew, because he had seen an actual map of the city.

"First thing you need to know," Scilo said, "is that we three make up the infiltration team. The machine that we have to disable – I'll be dealing with it. You two just have to get us in and out safely."

"Sounds simple enough," Luctor murmured.

"Oh, how I wish it were that simple. The problem is that the target machine is in the depths of the Edelstein Mines, which just happens to be where the Black Wings have set up base. Getting in and out is no easy task – there's one entrance and one exit."

Luctor shook his head. "Now, wait a minute. You're telling me that the Edelsteinians have zero emergency exits out of the mine?"

Mercedes shook her head as well. "That's what we're telling you. The Edelsteinians were extremely smart – they built tunnels _that can never collapse_. Even in the event of an earthquake, the support structures would hold it all up, no problem. They didn't even bother with an emergency exit because they were so confident."

"...You're kidding."

"Nope," Scilo said. "Anyways, on with the plan. This-" he pointed at the map "-is a map of the Edelstein Mine. This-" he pointed at the top of the map "-is the entrance to the mines."

And for the next three hours, Mercedes and Scilo explained to Luctor the plan, which was already set in stone:

12:58 PM: Change of guards at the mine entrance. No action taken. Each shift consists of a group of six guards at the entrance.

3:14 PM: diversion. The Resistance and Desla would put on a spectacular show in the middle of Edelstein Square, involving explosions and massive destruction. They would incapacitate any Black Wing guards headed their way, including Luctor's escort. This should draw many of the guards away from the Edelstein Mine.

3:20 PM: Luctor's escort would be gone by then, leaving him clear to switch clothes, take out his contact lens, and race to the rendezvous point of the merchant store one hundred sixteen meters from the entrance of the mines.

3:25 PM: The team would get together and wait.

3:33 PM: The guards should be tired by now and less vigilant. Exactly thirty minutes until the next shift comes in. Luctor and Mercedes are to knock out the six guards with sedatives. The team will enter, get to the machine, and disable it as soon as possible.

?:? PM: Team exits, revives the six guards with an antidote to the sedative, and leaves discreetly.

"When are we doing it?" Luctor asked. The plan was straightforward enough; the only potential source of trouble would be guard patrols within the actual mines. Unlike the guard patrols on the outside, the Resistance had limited knowledge on what the guard movements on the inside would be like. What little they had was all gained from spies they had placed within the Black Wing organization. Most of the meeting was spent going over the information and planning a route to the machine.

"Tomorrow," Mercedes said. She glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. It was almost 5 o'clock. "Go back to your hotel before dawn, and get some sleep. Rest up for tomorrow."

**Day 27**

_Poki Hotel: 3:13 PM_

Kaza was taking his afternoon nap in his bedroom, blissfully unaware of the fact that he was probably going to be hit in the head very hard quite soon. Luctor was pretending to take his afternoon nap in his bedroom, painfully aware of the fact that he might be killed quite soon.

While he was pondering what the afterlife would be like, a huge explosion resonated through the entire building, making it shudder as if it were a boat floating out in the ocean in the middle of a storm. The wood in the building creaked as it shifted, and the window next to Luctor cracked but did not break. After less than a second, it was over. More explosions sounded in the distance, rattling the glass of the windows but not shaking the building as violently as the first.

Kaza tumbled into Luctor's room, his hair standing up all over his head wildly. "Are you OK?" he yelled.

Luctor nodded.

"Smoke's coming from Edelstein Square." He pointed out the window. "I'm going to go check it out. Stay here, it's safe."

Luctor nodded again, but Kaza wasn't looking anymore. He had already rushed out of Luctor's room and out into the hotel corridor.

_Edelstein Square: 3:15 PM_

Desla stood in the middle of a crater, watching the events around him unfold. The Resistance men were scattered all over the square, waiting for the Black Wing patrols to arrive. Their orders were clear: knock the Black Wings unconscious, but do not kill them. This was merely a diversion, not a full-blown battle.

The morning before, when he had seen Luctor, he had come here to plant the charges that would bring the Black Wings like flies to honey. There were fifteen in all: fourteen were a simple matter to place, in trash cans around the square, in buildings adjacent to the square, and other arbitrary places. But the last one... Desla had to go down into the long-forgotten underground tunnels that used to be mines.

That last charge was to detonate first; it was the largest of them all, and was to create an explosion large enough to be felt throughout the entire city. And because he didn't want to vaporize himself, the charge went down below the city, where its power could be felt, but not its heat.

On his right, the bottom of a building exploded into a cloud of dust, blowing rubble all over the square as the support columns nearest to the explosives collapsed. The rest of the columns, unable to bear the weight without the other columns, crumbled slowly but surely, and the entire building tipped over and crashed into the ground like a drunk man on a unicycle.

And so the Resistance waited, their last explosive charge spent. They had, of course, bought out all the buildings around the Square a couple of weeks ago to make sure that no one would be in them on this fateful day.

And then, the words that would mark the beginning of their fight rang out as the scouts placed in the streets around the Square came running back to the Resistance forces.

"Desla, squad of fifteen from the east! Four minutes!"

"Squad of seventeen from the west, five minutes away!"

"Eighteen men approaching from the north! They'll be here in three minutes!"

"Seventeen coming from the south! Six minutes!"

Over sixty Black Wing forces coming their way. More would inevitably come once the first sixty something failed to return to their headquarters, but even sixty was more than Desla had thought would come.

_Oh well. Sixty is nothing compared to the thousands they have... This is why they put_ me _on the job, after all._

He reached out and pulled his scepter, a brutal-looking three foot long weapon, out of nowhere. The orb at the end, crackling with dark energy, was surrounded by what looked like four ax blades, although the flat metal pieces were completely blunt. A small glowing force shield was on his wrist.

"Remember, try to capture them if you can!" he roared.

A bolt of black lightning flashed by Desla's head, deflected only by his wards. He whirled around to meet the onslaught of the first squad of enemies, calling his men to remain in position.

_Edelstein Mine entrance: 3:31 PM_

The infiltration team was crouched behind a pile of rubble in front of the Edelstein Mine entrance, which was nothing more than a big shrubby hill with a cave carved into its side. Several guards were pacing impatiently back and forth directly outside of the cave, waiting for their shift to end. Each of them wore the Black Wings emblem on their jacket and hat.

"Hold on. Let me check the cracker." Scilo took a small device out of his backpack, pressing seemingly random buttons on it, then turned it off and put it back inside his pack. He looked up. "Take them out," he whispered to Mercedes.

Mercedes loaded her bowgun with a dart tipped with a powerful sedative, then shuffled to the very edge of the rubble pile for a clearer line of sight.

_Is that really six guards?_ Luctor wondered. He counted the group of guards at the entrance...

..and immediately knocked Mercedes' bowgun down.

She looked irritatedly at her teammate, annoyed that she had now lost aim. "Why'd you do that? I was just about to fire."

Luctor pointed urgently at the entrance. "That's not six guards," he whispered. "Unless they changed the number of guards per shift, that's not all of them."

After a pause, Scilo whispered back, "He's right. There's only five. Where's the last one?"

"Are we even _sure_ there's a last one?" Mercedes asked. "They could have reduced the number so they could get an extra man to the square."

Scilo shook his head. "No, no. They wouldn't leave their headquarters at risk just to be able to send another man out."

"The last guard has to be out of sight," Luctor concluded. Mercedes and Scilo both nodded silently. They were all thinking the same thing: if they knocked out one of the guards at the entrance, then the last guard would probably see them and raise the alarm. They had to take the missing one out first...

Each of them scanned the hillside, trying to look for him. They continued in silence for another minute, after which Scilo turned to Mercedes and whispered, "Maybe they _did_ send him out."

But Luctor wasn't listening. He heard them talking in hushed voices, but he didn't pay them any attention, because he had seen something...

_A discoloration._

A spot of black in a sea of gold straw and green shrubs. Of course, it could be just a shadow, but...

_There you are..._ The splotch of black grew bigger as the wind blew at the hillside, dividing the straw to reveal the shape of a marksman who lay flat on the ground, his crossbow stretched out in front of him.

Luctor pulled Mercedes over and pointed the marksman out to her. "Can you make the shot?"

"Looks to be about a hundred fifty yards... should be no problem." Mercedes lifted her bowgun to eye level, lining up the two notches on her weapon with the marksman's face. She adjusted her aim for wind and gravity, then pressed the trigger.

The dart, gleaming menacingly in the sun, was visible for less than a second before it was too far to see. A few seconds later, the marksman's head slumped to the ground as if he had just dozed off.

After nodding silently to Mercedes, Luctor scooted past her to Scilo's side, and watched the two of them go about their business. Mercedes handed Scilo her empty bowgun, which he reloaded with a dart even as he passed her the other bowgun, which she then fired without hesitation at the guards. This efficient exchange allowed Mercedes to fire all five darts in the space of four seconds, knocking the guards unconscious before they even realized they were under attack.

"Let's go," Scilo hissed at Luctor.

The small group sprinted across the ninety-three yards of open space between the rubble pile and the mine entrance, staying low to the ground to avoid detection. Their added efforts were unnecessary, however; not a conscious guard was in sight.

Once inside, they quickly reviewed the floor plans and the route that they would follow to the machine in the depths of the mines, then moved into formation. Mercedes was the advance, in front of the others check corners, and Luctor hung behind a tad to cover their rear. Resistance was pathetic; they encountered a grand total of two guards, who were both quickly incapacitated with Mercedes' darts.

In less than five minutes of running through the smooth whitewashed walls of the Black Wings headquarters, the infiltrators were in front of the defense mechanism, a huge conglomeration of copper snakes coiling all over the main piece, which was an enormous hunk of shiny metal. The trio stood there in silence, admiring the thing; it was amazing, they all knew, that this one piece of machinery could prevent even the most powerful magicians on the planet from teleporting near Edelstein. Amazing. Scary.

"Mercedes, go outside and keep watch," Luctor murmured. "Scilo, get to work."

The Edelsteinian knelt down before the machine, pulling a small device out of his pack. He plugged it in to the machine before pressing a not-very-visible button, making an interface pop up that was strangely reminiscent of Omega Sector's projection systems.

When Luctor voiced the last thought aloud, Scilo laughed. "That's because the Omegans built the machine," he explained while going about his business. His head didn't even turn as he talked to Luctor. "It was installed here after the Great War. Ironically, it was built to keep the Black Mage out in case he ever tried to return..."

_Machine room entrance: 3:39 PM_

Mercedes paced back and forth, keeping watch for any guards that might come this way. If there were any guards, she had to take them out immediately, before they sounded the alarm – it was of the utmost importance for the team to not be discovered while they deactivated the machine. If they were discovered, the Black Wings would know that they'd been to the machine and their plans would be ruined; it would take the Black Wings just a few seconds to reactivate it.

_It's amazing,_ Mercedes thought, _to see two of my closest friends after a hundred years! If things had gone normally, I would still be alive, but I would have watched them grow old and die... it's almost too good to be true for them to be alive!_

She shook the thoughts out of her head. This was no time to be thinking about her friends dying. Besides, there was still one person missing... the hero of pirates. Mercedes wondered if he could still be alive... sealed away just as the Black Mage had sealed Aran and herself away...

_Petra... I hope we'll find you._

A warm breeze flitted through the corridor, making Mercedes' golden strands of hair dance about as if they had a life of their own. She smiled, welcoming the comfort of the soft wind.

Then her smile froze and melted right off of her face.

_We're underground,_ she thought as she whirled around. _There wouldn't be wind, since the corridors don't have ventilation..._ Expecting to see some kind of magician readying a spell to cast at her, she whipped her bowguns out in front of her.

But there was no one.

She sprinted to the end of the corridor and rounded the corner, expecting to see a fleeing Black Wing.

But there was no one.

She briefly considered running further just to make sure there was no one, then dismissed the idea. It would be folly to stray too far from the machine room. She turned around and walked back to the machine room, where she continued pacing uneasily.

After another few seconds, another warm breeze blew through the corridor.

Mercedes instantly turned, facing the wall and pointing out her bowguns in either direction with her arms outstretched. She looked back and forth, searching for the person who was trying to drive her insane with some soft breezes.

But there was no one.

Practically shaking with apprehension, Mercedes tried to calm herself down. _Maybe it's just Luctor messing with the wind again... I should go ask him._

Another warm breeze blew through the corridor, chilling Mercedes down to the bone. She shivered and began walking to the door of the machine room.

"_Mercedes..."_

_What was that?_ Mercedes thought nervously. "Who – who's there?"

"_It's me... Luctor."_

"Luctor is inside the machine room! Show yourself!"

"_Turn around..."_ the air whispered.

Mercedes did so and almost fainted from shock. There, floating a foot above the ground, was a transparent Luctor – every wrinkle, every pore, every feature the same as the one inside the machine room, except milky white. Even his posture was reminiscent of her Thief friend. "Luctor is inside the machine room..."

"_I am dead."_

"But you're..."

The specter laughed. It was an unnatural laugh; Mercedes cringed at the noise, which sounded like glass being crushed. _"The Black Mage killed me one hundred years ago. The thing inside is nothing but an illusion, created by the Illusionist."_

"Akyrum..." Mercedes whispered. "Is it possible? Is it really you?"

"_Akyrum will use the illusion to spy on the Resistance... learn of their battle plans. You must kill it."_

"H-how?"

The ghost smiled, and again Mercedes cringed. _"Kill it like you would kill a man." _A warm breeze made its way through the hallway, and the ghost dissolved into nothingness.

A sparkling diamond made its way down Mercedes' cheek as she absorbed the ghost's words.

Luctor, alive? It _was_ too good to be true.

_Athena Pierce's home: 12:46 PM, Victoria time_

"Athena!"

The bowman elf turned her head towards the voice, busy picking up her books from the floor. They had fallen off of her bookshelf just a few hours ago, when the last earthquake had struck. There had been several earthquakes lately, two since Luctor's departure for Edelstein three days ago, not including the most recent. "Yes, Milea?"

The young woman's face was redder than a tomato, Athena observed. Milea evidently had some very exciting news... or maybe it was just because the girl had run a long way in a short time.

"The last earthquake – I thought it felt like it was coming from Sleepywood, so I went down there to ask the Rememberer. He told me that _all_ the recent earthquakes had been coming from the deep temple!"

Athena dropped her books as the blood drained from her face and into whatever region of the body that would make her feel less frightened. "The – the deep temple?"

Milea stooped down to pick up Athena's books, but the elf waved her away. "Are you sure? The deep temple?"

"The Rememberer's very own words, Miss Pierce. Is something the matter?"

Athena closed her eyes and felt her blood rush back to her face, along with some terrifying thirty-year-old memories. "The last time earthquakes came from the deep temple," she whispered hoarsely, "Balrog broke free of his seals."


	13. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Day 26**

_Mercedes: machine room: 3:46 PM_

Another silent sob shook through Mercedes' body as she took a look at Luctor – _no, the illusion._ It seemed so real, that illusion...

"Any luck?" the illusion asked Scilo in Luctor's voice. Scilo shook his head tersely, not even looking up.

"I don't understand," Scilo muttered. "The cracker is working fine – I even tested it before we came in. It's the machine – the machine is somehow screwed up..."

Mercedes raised her gunbow, a lethally sharp arrow loaded into it. She pointed it at Luctor's back, where his heart would be. And then she pressed the trigger.

_Luctor: machine room: 3:46 PM_

_What's taking so long?_ Luctor wondered. In that small apartment on Klenx Drive, Scilo had estimated that he would be able to disable the machine in just a few minutes – but it had been almost ten minutes now, and the man still wasn't done. Not even close to done, according to him.

"Any luck?" Luctor asked concernedly. _If we don't succeed, Edelstein's defenses will still bar our way in._ And at the pace things were going, they would run out of time before Scilo disabled the machine.

Scilo shook his head tersely, not even looking up. He continued pressing buttons on his hand-held device, but the machine gave no response.

"I don't understand," he muttered. "The cracker is working fine – I even tested it before we came in. It's the machine – the machine is somehow screwed up..."

_Click._ Luctor had heard the sound before – it was the sound of Mercedes' bowgun. He instinctively turned around with his fan snapped open, just in time to deflect the projectile that would have punctured his heart.

"What the hell are you doing, Mercedes?" he yelped.

Scilo looked up, but Luctor gestured him to pay no attention. "Keep working at it."

Mercedes, mute tears sliding freely down her face, raised her bowgun and fired another arrow at Luctor. This time, he made no move to deflect it; Mercedes was so distraught that the arrow flew over his head by a foot.

"Don't talk to me, whatever the hell you are!" Mercedes screamed, letting loose another arrow.

"Whatever the hell – Mercedes, I'm Luctor! Are you blind?" he yelled, smacking the arrow out of the air with his fan.

"No, you're not! You're an illusion, and Luctor is dead!" she screamed again, firing three arrows in rapid succession.

Luctor was able to knock two arrows away, but the last hit his chest, smashing the breath out of him. He looked down, expecting to see a fatal wound with blood flowing profusely from it, but the Dark Lord's gift – the Chrysian wool clothes – had blocked the arrow, although it did leave a rather nasty bruise. Once Luctor got some air back into his lungs, he resumed yelling at Mercedes. "_I_ am the real Luctor! I don't even know what you're talking about!"

"LIAR! You won't even die like a real man!" Another arrow.

"Holy Minerva! Will you just stop – tell me what the hell is going on! I'm Luctor!"

"Prove it," the elf queen hissed, letting fly another arrow.

"I–" Luctor paused. How _could_ he prove it?

Another arrow hissed by his ear, and Luctor instantly remembered something that Mercedes had told him under complete secrecy – something that she had made him swear not to tell anyone else, because he was the only person who knew–

"Your – your first love," Luctor gasped, "was a human. A human by the name of Arctan."

A look of horror descended upon Mercedes' face like a hawk upon a rabbit, and like a hawk, the look of horror left Mercedes' face looking ravaged and torn a few seconds later. "Minerva forgive me," she whispered. The tears now came in such a torrent that Luctor feared the elf would dehydrate herself by crying.

She wiped the liquid away with her hand and embraced Luctor, all feelings of hostility gone. "I'm so sorry," she repeated again and again. "The ghost, it told me..."

Luctor immediately pushed her away and looked her in the eye. "Ghost? What ghost? Tell me everything that happened."

"I – while I was in the corridor, a warm wind kept blowing at me, and finally, some phantom appeared. It looked exactly like you – it sounded exactly like you too, except its laugh..." Mercedes shuddered at the memory. "It told me you were an illusion, and that he was the real Luctor. It told me you had died a hundred years ago."

Luctor stood, frozen in place by the new development. It all made sense now – Scilo's failure to do anything to the machine, the Luctor impersonator – and yet, somehow, Luctor only felt worse by knowing what was going on.

The entire room flickered like a bad lightbulb, changing from a clean-cut room with whitewashed walls to a rocky brown-walled room, then back in less than a second. What caught Luctor's eye weren't the rock-and-dirt walls in that fraction of a second, though – it was the fact that _there was no machine in the room._

"Oh, crap," he breathed.

"Akyrum," Mercedes gasped, finally understanding.

"The Illusionist," Luctor confirmed. He turned to Scilo and pulled him off the ground roughly. "We have to get out of here immediately. Every second we spend here, our chances of survival get lower and lower."

The three of them broke off into a jog, running for the mine entrance, Scilo running with a confused look on his face. "I don't understand. What's happening? Why do we need to go?"

"Akyrum, also known as The Illusionist, is one of the Black Mage's most trusted generals," Luctor explained. "He's known as The Illusionist because he can weave illusions so intricate that those trapped inside never realize it's actually an illusion – that room, this entire section of the mine, is one such illusion."

"We're rats in a maze," Mercedes summed up.

After a few minutes of running, Luctor motioned for everyone to stop. "We have to break the illusion, or Akyrum could have us running around in circles, or deeper into the mine, for all we know."

"How?" Scilo asked.

"It's not easy," Luctor said worriedly. "We might even be attacked while we're trying to break it."

"Sit down," Mercedes said to the both of them. "I'll keep watch while you two break it. Scilo, just sit down, close your eyes, and blank your mind. Let the ambient sounds flow through – and you'll hear the spell that creates the illusion. When you hear it, isolate the noise of the spell and suppress it with your mind as best you can."

As it turned out, Scilo didn't even have to do anything – by the time he had isolated the "noise of the spell" three minutes later, Luctor had already broken the illusion, and the three restarted their jog. However, they had no idea where they were – instead of being in the sector of the mines in which the walls were white as they should have been, they were almost certainly in the depths of the mines, where there were only mine shafts with dirt and rock walls.

"Now that we've broken the illusion," Scilo said breathlessly, "can't we try to destroy the machine, then head out?"

Luctor shook his head. "Now that we've broken the illusion, Akyrum himself will be after us."

_Henesys: 12:57 PM, Victoria time_

As Athena Pierce hurried to the Prickly Heights Tavern of Henesys, one word coursed through her head, over and over again.

_Balrog._

The last time that damned creature had broken free of its seal, it had wreaked havoc upon Sleepywood, destroying three centuries of work for the inhabitants of the Dungeon. And then Tristan had gone down there to stop it, gotten killed, and then the Dark Lord as well – and then Jin became the newest Dark Lord, and then all hell broke loose in Kerning City as a result.

_Great, _Athena muttered mentally. _Balrog is exactly what we need for us to lose this war against the Black Mage._

She skidded to a stop as she realized she had passed the tavern's entrance a few seconds ago, then traced back her steps and entered the dingy establishment. "Get me Grendel's contacts," she snapped to the owner.

Exactly forty seconds later, the owner descended from the upper floor, followed by two magicians in long, flowing purple robes. "Here they are, Miss Pierce."

The two magicians, both lacking hair, although one was female, bowed as the tavern owner walked away to serve his other customers. "Miss Pierce," they murmured. "Is something wrong?"

The pair had been sent to Henesys as a result of the formation of the Union – people that would fight against the Black Mage. Grendel had sent two magicians who could keep in contact with each other via telepathic link to each city so the Commanders would be able to communicate instantaneously. Athena gestured towards the door. "Let's talk outside."

Once outside, Athena immediately cut to the chase. "I need to to send a message to each of the magicians in each city."

The male magician nodded. "Of course. What is the message?"

"I need you to tell each of the Commanders to mobilize their best men and head to Sleepywood as soon as possible."

The woman looked at Athena sharply. "Sleepywood or the Tree?"

"Sleepywood."

Reminding Athena of her very own reaction, the blood drained simultaneously out of both magicians' faces as they realized the only reason they would need to gather in Sleepywood. "The earthquakes – Balrog?"

_Magicians are sharp... I didn't even mention the earthquakes._ "Yes."

The two nodded and made to go back inside the tavern, but Athena motioned for them to stop. "Go get your belongings and come back outside – I'll be waiting for you. I'll take you to my house – I need to organize the archers, and both of you need to come with me."

"Of course, Miss Pierce."

_Edelstein: 4:08 PM_

Luctor let out a breath unsteadily. "We're caught," he said.

The trio was just fifteen meters away from the only entrance and exit – they had found a familiar bend on one of their maps and adjusted their escape route – of the mines, after running for just shy of half an hour in a mad dash for the outside. Pursuing closely behind them were at least thirty Black Wing guards, kept pinned behind a corner by Mercedes' fast shooting. Ahead of them was the exit – freedom, Luctor wanted to think – but he knew better. Outside would be waiting at least another thirty guards, just waiting for the three fighters to burst out so they could capture them.

"What can we do?" Mercedes whispered, her eyes glued to the corner, just waiting to shoot the next Black Wings to go around.

"We can't take sixty at once – the thirty behind us will be sure to follow us outside."

"They'll probably be organized in a semicircle around the entrance," Scilo said. "To make sure there's no escape."

_No escape._ The words reverberated in the corridor – the corridor that lead to death or capture on one side, and death or capture on the other. _There's no way to get out._ He wondered what Lady Syl would say – she had put so much faith in him, believing that he would be able to free Edelstein...

_There is always a way._ Hadn't she said so? Maybe...

"Scilo, the bomb. Do you have it?"

"Yeah, of course. Remote detonation, last resort for the machine."

"Give it to me," Luctor ordered.

Scilo took a five-inch-wide metallic-looking dome out of his backpack and twisted the top portion of it, then handed it to Luctor. "There, it's activated."

Luctor peeled a layer of wax paper off of the bottom of the dome, revealing an adhesive surface. He reached up and attached it to the ceiling. "It won't cave in the entire mine, but it'll at least form a rubble pile to buy us some time from the guys behind us."

"What about the ones outside?" Mercedes asked.

"We'll punch a hole. Somehow. At least we're only fighting forward now."

Scilo nodded. "It's suicide... but it's our only chance. I'll detonate as soon as we clear the entrance. We don't want to be hit by shrapnel."

They all looked at each other awkwardly, painfully aware of the fact that these could very well be their last minutes alive.

Mercedes laughed a short laugh. "Well, come on then. If we're going to die, we're going to do so with a huge freaking bang."

"Alright... on three. I'll lead. Mercedes behind me. Scilo last. Three... two... one... _go.._"

And so they went, with Mercedes brandishing her dual bowguns as if they were the most beautiful things in the world (they probably were) and Luctor swiping with his fan, anticipating arrows.

About twenty meters out of the mines, Luctor stopped abruptly, and Mercedes almost crashed into him. Scilo, who was preoccupied with detonating the bomb, did crash into Mercedes, and the two lay sprawled on the ground. The resultant explosion sent sharp shards of shrapnel flying out of the tunnel entrance.

"What in the..." Mercedes looked at Luctor questioningly.

The expected mob of thirty Black Wings guards was present all right, but their formation was rather odd – not at all in the predicted tight perimeter that would actually catch Luctor and company. Instead of being arranged in a semicircle around the entrance, all of the Black Wings men, minus the ten unconscious ones scattered about on the ground, were arranged in a man-glob around a central focus point.

"They're attacking someone," Scilo said.

Luctor nodded. "They're distracted. We should take the guards out and save whoever they're attacking." He turned to Mercedes, who showed her agreement by firing four arrows at the group of Black Wings.

Launching himself into a sprint, Luctor teleported to the outside and cut down three guards with several slashes of his fan before they even realized he was there. He caught a brief glimpse of the man who was being attacked; he wore clothes that bore different varieties of brown, topped off with a brown cap that covered the man's eyes yet seemed to not impede his vision. Then more Black Wings moved in to fill the gap and attacked Luctor, making him lose sight of the strange man.

Backed up by Mercedes' unceasing stream of arrows, Luctor slashed his way through the mob until only one Black Wing was left, and, of course, the strange man. They stared at each other across the remaining Black Wing (or, rather, Luctor stared at the strange man's cap, which seemed to look back at him), who looked agitatedly back and forth. Finally, unable to take the tension anymore, the Black Wing took off, running towards the headquarters, and the mystery man whipped out a pistol and immediately shot the runner.

The man's head tilted slightly as if in an inquisitive manner, and the corners of his mouth rose ever so slightly.

Mercedes and Scilo came running up, and they both exclaimed, "J!"

"Mercedes... Scilo... afternoon, old chaps." J tipped his hat down even further at them, then raised it back up so it covered only his eyes, rather than his whole face. J's voice was silkily smooth, reminiscent of the pop artist who had sung the last song Luctor had heard before fighting the Black mage, Tustin Jimberlake.

"You know this guy?" Luctor asked.

"Of course!" Mercedes and Scilo both exclaimed once again. "He's the Resistance's top agent; he trained Claudine, our leader, on his own," Scilo explained.

"Tush, tush," J said, waving in the air with his hand as if to disperse the words. "This is not the place to discuss such things, especially names. Let us move ourselves."

As J led them to a safer place, he explained how he had come to be at the Black Wings headquarters. "If you would be so kind, let us avoid using names until we are in a safe place," he preluded. After a moment of silence, he turned his head to Mercedes.

"I was with your beau, my dear, to provide a diversion for your covert operation down here. Contrary to our former estimates of fifty maximum Black Wings agents sent to investigate the disturbance that our diversion caused, over sixty arrived in a first wave of them. Sixty more barged in on our little party in the second wave. We abandoned the idea of nonlethal suppression at that point as wholly impractical.

"And then, my dear, a third wave arrived. Our forces were insufficient to bulwark our position. Your beau dismissed all of the Resistance forces to disperse via minor alleyways so he could fight them off with the full brunt of his force without fear of collateral damage. All of them except me immediately made a beeline for Resistance headquarters to recover from damages sustained, although no fatalities were inflicted upon us.

"I, on the other hand, decided to come this way to investigate, thinking that surely the Black Wings would not send so many soldiers to our diversion as to leave their headquarters undefended. I came to the conclusion that the infiltration group was probably in some great trouble – and I must admit, you may not have been able to fight off this group if I had not been distracting them."

Mercedes seemed to absorb only one piece of information from the entire narration. "Desla's fighting them _alone_? Where is he? I have to go help!" She stopped in her tracks and turned around to run to the Square.

J shook his head urgently. "No, my dear. Your beau knew that I would come, and expressly forbade me from allowing you to pursue him." Whether or not Desla had actually told him this was under doubt in Luctor's mind.

"I have to go help him!" Mercedes yelled. "He'll get captured or killed or something!"

"No!" J said firmly. "Your beau possesses a power I have never seen before. I am sure he will be fine. You must have faith in him, my dear. Going anywhere near there could hurt ourselves."

For the second time that day, tears flowed down Mercedes' cheeks. Luctor tried to comfort her, saying, "He's more than capable, Mercedes. He can do things even we can't."

She nodded weakly, tears still flowing, and broke into a jog for the Resistance headquarters, away from Edelstein Square.


	14. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: Day 26**

_Edelstein: 5:26 PM_

"Welcome to headquarters," J murmured quietly to Luctor before slipping away discreetly.

The Resistance headquarters was quite impressive, considering the fact that it was a an underground organization in that it was both located underground and it was a very hush-hush organization. Any financial contributions had to be very small or they would draw the unwanted attention of the Black Wings. On the walls of the enormous underground chamber were gigantic flat screen TVs upon which various needed items were projected as well as the quantity needed. _Three hundred steel swords,_ it displayed one moment before _eight hundred pounds of Rue._

In any case, the Resistance seemed to be very well updated with technology – more updated than Luctor, in any case. When he was shot into space a hundred years ago, the only TVs available were from Omega Sector and they projected extremely grainy black and white images onto a semi-opaque piece of glass.

This room, Luctor saw, was a mess hall; rivers of people flowed between the numerous tables to and from the window at the side where food was handed out. Scilo and Mercedes led Luctor down to an empty table and told him to sit down.

Scilo made no move to sit down, explaining, "I'm going to go talk to Claudine. She's our leader. J will be there too. We need to tell her what happened." He walked off briskly.

Mercedes didn't sit down either. "I'll get food for the two of us. Stay here. Don't talk to anyone. They're all for the same cause here, but the Resistance isn't exactly... selective. It's best to be cautious." Then she too strode away.

Immensely tired by the day's events, Luctor put his head in his arms on the table, and fell asleep within a few minutes. About five minutes after he had passed out from exhaustion, Mercedes prodded him awake and gave him a bowl of warm soup to drink.

"I don't really want it," he mumbled.

"Nonsense. Drink it. It's good for you."

Luctor reluctantly put the bowl to his mouth, but had barely taken a sip before an enormous hunk of flesh of man with a square jaw rumbled, "Claudine wants to see you. _Both_ of you."

"We'll be right there, Elex," Mercedes said, and the mountain rumbled away. "Wait!"

The mountain turned around.

"Is Desla back yet?"

Elex shook his head and resumed his trip back to wherever he had come from.

Looking like all the life had been drained from her limbs, Mercedes slumped forward onto the table. "I hope he comes back soon," she whispered hopelessly.

"He will."

Mercedes didn't look so sure. "Let's go see Claudine." She stood up, scraping the chair against the floor, and dropped a few coins onto the table. She walked off without even making sure Luctor was following her.

The headquarters from where Claudine led the Resistance within the headquarters was in the bottommost level of actual headquarters, and Mercedes and Luctor were the sole riders of a groaning elevator that clambered its way down a narrow shaft. The grated metal doors screeched open, revealing a corridor in which ten Resistance guards stood; six Battle Mages, two Mechanics, and two Wild Hunters all glared warily at the two of them.

"Stop there," the lead Battle Mage growled. He motioned for two other Battle Mages to check Mercedes and Luctor.

Following a short pat-down, the pair of guards muttered that the two Heroes were clear, although Luctor didn't really see the point in the search. The guards had completely ignored Luctor's fan and Mercedes' bowguns as well as her quiver full of arrows.

"Enter," the Battle Mage growled again. One of the Mechanics manipulated his machine's arm, forcing it into a hole next to the door, which, oddly enough, had no handle or doorknob.

Something clicked noisily, and the door opened as the Mechanic repossessed the machine's arm from the wall. One of the jaguars tamed by the Wild Hunters let loose a savage roar, shattering a presumably magical shield in the doorway; the shards dissolved into the air before they ever touched the ground.

Everyone watched in an awkward silence as the two newcomers walked into the large conference room. At least twenty people were seated at an enormous table at the head of which a woman wearing a black mask and black clothes stood. Scilo was standing next to her. J, although he was supposedly at the meeting, was nowhere to be seen.

"Attitude," Scilo mouthed at Mercedes.

The woman, exuding a sense of confidence and natural leadership, looked at Scilo. "Thank you, Scilo, that will be all. You are dismissed, as is everyone else except the two of you that just came in."

Scilo bowed his head and slipped out quietly, but the rest of the room immediately broke out into an uproar. Luctor heard snippets of things the people were all yelling at Claudine: "We have a right to know!", "What if they're dangerous?", and "We're all going to die!"

"Silence." Claudine's voce, loud and clear, seemed to project effortlessly throughout the room, although she hadn't raised her voice a bit. Everyone immediately shut up and snapped to attention. "Get out. _Everyone._ Except Mercedes and whoever that is."

This time, everyone obeyed quietly and a stream of people trickled out of the room unenthusiastically. Claudine watched the last of them leave.

As soon as the door closed, the Resistance leader turned her steely gaze upon Luctor and said coldly, "Tell me what happened."

Before he could even say anything, Mercedes looked at Claudine confusedly. "Didn't Scilo and J already tell you?"

"It's of no importance to you," the leader of the Resistance snapped.

"But why would you need to hear the story three times?"

"Because," she almost snarled, "at least two hundred forty Black Wings agents – maybe up to five hundred – attacked our so-called diversion and Akyrum was in headquarters. All of our sources had told us that Akyrum was in Orbis just yesterday negotiating peace treaties and the other Generals were elsewhere. Either our sources were duped or Akyrum had flown here last-minute."

Luctor scratched his nose pensively, then spoke. "It could have been some insane coincidence that he ended up here, although I don't have much confidence in this theory. How long ago did you start plotting this sabotage plan, who did you tell about it, and when was the exact date settled?"

Claudine caught on quickly. "Are you suggesting we have a mole in our organization?"

Luctor nodded.

"If that is true, the mole would have had to been in a high position... almost no one was told of the plan."

"They didn't need to know the entire plan, though. They may have just passed on word that something big was going down soon, and the Black Wings should bring in some support soon."

"True. How do I know I can trust _you_, though? How do I know _you_ weren't the one to tip off the Wings? I don't even know who you are."

Grunting impatiently, Mercedes asked, "Are you familiar with the legend of the five Heroes?"

"Of course I am. How can I not be, with one of them standing right in front of me?"

"Two," Luctor corrected her.

The Resistance leader raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"There are two Heroes standing in front of you," he elaborated.

A slender hand crept up to Claudine's face, covering her slightly agape mouth. "Oh my. You're Luctor?"

"Indeed I am."

Her hand dropped from her mouth and snaked its way into her right pocket, from which the hand extracted a folded envelope. "I would exchange pleasantries, but I received an urgent message addressed to you an hour ago. I haven't read it, but I'm sure it's not marked urgent for no reason." She extended her hand, holding out the envelope.

Luctor grabbed it. On the front side, it read in messy handwriting: "To Claudine: Make sure Luctor receives this ASAP." There was nothing on the backside.

Tearing open the envelope, Luctor pulled out a small piece of paper with jagged edges, as if it had been ripped from a notebook in a hurry. The words on it were scrawled hurriedly.

_Luctor. Balrog broke seals. Return ASAP. Sleepywood. Ask Remembr._

"Oh, good goddess," he breathed. Just reading the name of the immense creature sent a shiver down Luctor's spine.

Mercedes, who had been reading over his shoulder, let out a shuddering sigh. "Do none of our seals work? Balrog, Black Mage, gah! Do all of our seals have expiration dates? Hundred-year warranties?"

Luctor turned to her. "Balrog broke free half a century ago and had to be re-sealed by the Dark Lord at the time. He lost his life for it."

"You have to go back, Luctor. This time, impart no mercy. Kill the damned creature," Mercedes said determinedly.

"What about you?"

"I – I have to stay. I have to find Desla..."

Claudine had been listening the exchange silently, but found the moment to speak. "Mercedes... we can find him. You must go back and help the Victorians."

The elf shook her head firmly. "I can't leave anyone behind again. Not this time."

Luctor gestured helplessly. "Mercedes, Victoria Island-"

"-will be fine. They have Aran and Evan already... they'll have you in a few hours too." She shook her head again when Luctor tried to put a hand on her shoulder. "No means no, Luctor. I'm not leaving until I find Desla." She turned around and exited the chamber.

"...good luck," the miserable Thief whispered hoarsely after her, seeing an old friend walk away from him less than twenty-four hours after he had seen her for the first time in a hundred years.

"Brighton!" Claudine said.

An entire shelf of books leaning against the wall seemed to melt away, revealing a long-faced man with a very fancy staff and robes. "Yes, Claudine?"

"Luctor needs to get back to Victoria Island as soon as possible. We could have him board the next ship, but that would take too long. Sneak out of the city perimeter with him and teleport him to Victoria Island."

Brighton bowed his head. "I'll need to take a few more battle mages with me. A teleportation to Victoria Island will take too much time and energy for me to do it alone."

"Very well. Make sure you aren't spotted."

_Sleepywood: 4:18 PM, Victorian Time_

"Is it true?" Grendel murmured through his thick white beard.

The five job instructors stood on the edge of a small cliff within the Ant Tunnels of the Sleepywood dungeons. In front of them was darkness. Just more Ant Tunnels, dug by Ant Eyes, the ancient ancestors of Evil Eyes, Curse Eyes, and Cold Eyes that now inhabited the Ant Tunnels. The Sleepywood Dungeon cosisted of nothing but these tunnels, filled with cold, dead whispers of spirits long passed and creeping monsters.

Behind were soldiers; the best of Victoria Island gathered to fight the creature known as Balrog.

One hundred sixty-eight in all. That was all they could muster up in an hour to combat the evil that lay deep in the temple ruins of Sleepywood.

Of course, Evan and Aran had come with them. Hopefully Luctor and Mercedes would arrive before it was too late to help.

The Dark Lord had only been able to scrounge up a small force of twenty-eight Shadowers and Night Lords, and he fervently hoped that the Thieves that he _had_ brought along would prove worthy.

Dances with Balrog, on the other hand, had been able to find thirty-eight Paladins, Dark Knights, and Heroes. Some fifty fourth-jobbers had convened a week ago for a class reunion of sorts. Many of them had stayed for a while longer to enjoy the area that they had grown up in. Now they would fight for the area they had grown up in. The Chief himself looked forward to validating his given name with feats in battle.

Thirty-six archers, thirty-four pirates, and thirty-two magicians had answered the call to arms in addition to the warriors and thieves. All of them to fight just one enemy.

"I'm afraid it is," Athena said.

"Lovely," Kyrin drawled. "We have a chance to lose control of Victoria Island before the Black Mage has even attacked."

"Sounds like a challenge," Dances with Balrog grunted. He swung an axe with a blade bigger than his torso at a stone, violently smashing it into rubble. "I wonder if this'll smash through its thick skull."

"We should get organized," the Dark Lord said. "Marching as a glob of men helps not our fighting prowess."

"Form ranks!" Athena cried out to the small army.

The hectic grouping of the army shifted, forming lines out of the clumps of socializing men and women. All stood to attention in stiff poses, waiting for further orders.

"It's time, friends. We march to..."

A hush passed over the entire tunnels; all the critters in the dungeon seemed to hold their breaths to hear Athena's next word.

Athena sighed a sigh that echoed throughout the tunnels. The Rememberer heard it all the way from Sleepywood. "...Balrog. Prepare yourselves, for the fight will not be easy. Remain on guard as we march through these treacherous tunnels. You never know what creatures will attack you."

All of a sudden, the tunnels exhaled and the incessant clicking and slurping of the critters in the dungeon returned. _Welcome... we hope you enjoy your stay..._

_Outskirts of Edelstein: 7:47 PM, Edelstein time_

The sun had set on Edelstein, but it was not yet night. A faint light was cast upon Luctor and the group of seven Battle Mages that accompanied him. Brighton seemed to be the supreme commander of the Battle Mages.

"It's not easy to sneak so many people out," Brighton whispered to Luctor. The man was extremely talkative, even in these dire situations that required nothing but the utmost silence. "We have to teleport someone every week, mostly just to relay information to the Cygnus Knights. But the Wings usually aren't on such high alert."

Luctor stared at the man. "Great. Let's get out."

Brighton nodded. "Cross the street when I give you the signal. We don't want to get into a fight with a guard patrol, do we? Ha. The extent of the machine's influence should end within a mile..." He abruptly dashed across the street into the next alleyway, then poked his head out and stared at the patrol going up and down the street.

"Between you talking and these guards, it's going to take us three years to get out of here," Luctor muttered.

Still watching the guards intently, Brighton held up a hand. He turned to Luctor, opened his mouth, decided that Luctor wouldn't be able to hear his beautiful voice at such a distance, and motioned for him to cross.

The Thief made it across the street in half a second flat, nothing more than a shadow flitting through the city.

"We're making good progress, mate." The mage instructor stuck his head out of the alley again, then motioned for the next Battle Mage to come over. "I reckon we're only half an hour away from the end of this journey."

"_Thank Minerva_," the Thief mouthed. He couldn't stand this over-friendly mage much longer.

_Sleepywood, 4:53, Victorian Time_

"INFERNO VOLLEY!" Athena screamed. A shower of flaming arrows peppered Balrog's face before the creature even knew it was under attack. As soon as each arrow hit, ten more arrows made of pure enraged fire formed out of nowhere and hit the monster, setting its fur alight.

"BLIZZARD VOLLEY!" the elf ordered. The seventeen Marksmen launched arrows coated in ice, vapor trailing behind the missiles. On impact, the arrows exploded into a cloud of icy fog, which condensed into sharp ice shrapnel, freezing Balrog's fur where it was not burning.

"BLIZZARD!" Grendel yelled with a magically amplified voice. He stabbed his staff directly into the ground, and glowing blue energy shot out from the tip of his weapon into the ceiling of the enormous cavern they were in. Once there, it spread and joined with his students' magic to send a shower of hail, sleet, and snow raining down upon Balrog's head. Bolts of lightning crackled and periodically struck it, reigniting fires that were extinguished moments later by the cold magic.

"INFERNO VOLLEY! METEOR!" As the Ice/Lightning magicians stepped back to recover from the huge cost in energy their magic had exacted upon them, bowmasters again stepped up to fire flaming arrows, this time backed by Fire/Poison magicians who sent down huge fireballs dropping down upon Balrog.

The immense creature, which had been temporarily addled by the almost instantaneously changing temperatures of its coat, finally recovered and readied itself for a fight. Its legs, emaciated by centuries and maybe millenia of disuse and being sealed away, slowly straightened themselves, tensing up muscles that had not been used for fifty years. It pulled its arms upward, tearing the chains that bound it to the ground into two.

At fifty feet tall, Balrog probably weighed more than all the one hundred sixty-eight men that were fighting against it put together. It tilted its head back and roared fiercely, shaking the cavern with its voice so violently that several stalactites crashed down onto the floor. It spread its leathery wings, rubble crumbling out of their folds. Swiping its three-fingered hands through the stalactices, Balrog sent deadly stones big enough to crush electrophants crashing down on the army.

Using the falling stalactites like some demented staircase, a group of three Shadowers, led by the Dark Lord, ran up fifty feet to Balrog's head and grabbed on to its fur. Before he had a chance to cloak himself in a Dark Sight, one of the Shadowers was grabbed by Balrog and thrown bodily across the length of the cavern.

The army was by now in complete disarray; all pretense of organization had faded, with all the former ranks and lines mixed with each other. The constantly falling stalactites prevented them from regrouping, but they all waited for further orders from their commanders.

"Archers!" Kyrin cried out. "Fasten ropes on your arrows and bring that sucker down! Buccaneers, use Snatch!"

The archers tied ropes to their arrows, nocked them, and got ready to fire. Buccaneers spun their grapples, listening to them hiss through the air as they gained momentum. All of a sudden, Balrog roared again, knocking all the archers and Buccaneers off-balance.

_"Cursed temple,"_ the creature snarled, _"release my brethren upon these fools."_

The words pierced through everything. The falling stalactites seemed to pulsate, and when they hit the ground, they did not smash into shrapnel, but rather exploded into a viscous dark substance that coated the ground.

And then, all at the same time, the dark substance coagulated into dozens upon dozens of black globs in front of the army's eyes, ten feet tall. The dark liquid evaporated, leaving behind over a hundred Junior Balrogs scattered throughout the cavern.

_"Kill them,"_ the one true Balrog roared. The Junior Balrogs roared in unison, shaking the underground chamber once again.

"CHARGE!" Athena Pierce screamed. She broke into a run, loosing three arrows at the nearest Junior Balrog, one in the eye, one in the chest, and one in the neck without a hitch. It fell, dead, with black smoke curling up from its wounds.

Dances with Balrog grinned, bloodlust clear in his expression. "Let's slaughter 'em, boys!" In one smooth stroke, he swung his massive axe through the head of one Junior Balrog and through the neck of another.

"Aran, Evan, go around the flank and try to take the big one down!" Kyrin yelled.

The Heroes nodded. Evan grabbed Aran's arm, yelled "BLINK!" at Mir, and they all teleported right next to Balrog's smelly left foot.

"Guy hasn't had a shower in a couple thousand years," Aran complained while climbing up its leg.

Evan looked at Aran confusedly. "What are you doing?"

"What does it _look_ like I'm doing? I'm climbing this guy so I can get up there and slit his throat."

"Wouldn't it be quicker to fly?"

"Do I look like I have wings – oh."

"Oh indeed." Evan hopped onto Mir and they flew up to just below Aran, who dropped down heavily onto Mir's back. The dragon dropped a full foot from Aran's weight.

"You're heavy," Mir rumbled.

"It's all muscle," Aran smirked.

The dragon rolled its eyes but said nothing, flapping its wings to rise to the height of Balrog's horns. A stretching wing almost knocked the group out of the air as Balrog spread its wings for the first time in millenia.

"Its wings are vulnerable," Aran whispered to Evan.

"Well, we can't get too close or we'll get hit by them. He's moving them too much."

"Are you doubting my flying skills, child?" Mir chuckled. "You have much to learn about me."

The tips of Evan's ears reddened as Mir tilted gently to near the wings gradually. Aran hefted up his enormous polearm in preparation. The wing was a huge curtain of leather to the side of them.

"We have to do as much damage as we can," Aran said. "Maha!"

A bored-looking orange spirit floated out of the polearm. "Are we finally get some action?"

"Final Blow, Final Blow, Final Blow, Fenrir. Get ready."

Mir tilted even further, letting Balrog's wing come into striking distance of Aran. "Whip up some flames, Evan," the dragon said.

_Sleepywood: Dances with Balrog, 5:09 PM_

Dance with Balrog giggled. This was the most exciting thing to have happened since he had fought against Zakum. Exhilerating, this fight was.

Numerous Junior Balrogs charged up to the man, challenging him, and none survived for more than five seconds. The most slashes he had taken to take down a single monster was two. As much fun as he was having, though, he knew he had to move on to bigger fish. The Junior Balrogs were nothing. The main target was the true Balrog, the one menace that was made of pure evil and also had the power to act upon its urges.

"Athena, we must take the big one down," he grunted as he pulled his axe from the corpse of a Junior Balrog.

"Archers, Buccaneers, get ready!" she ordered in reply.

But in front of him, he saw something. Dances with Balrog had a better idea. "Athena, wait. Look." He pointed at Balrog's legs. His wobbly, thin-as-bone legs. "He's already falling. We just need to tip him over."

Athena nodded in agreement. "Arhcers and Buccaneers, pass the word along that we are to fight to the creature's legs. Disperse!"

_Right outside of Edelstein, 8:10 PM_

Brighton flipped his hair. "Well, Luctor, it's been nice talking to ya. It's almost a pity to see you go. Sure you don't want to stay?"

Luctor resisted the urge to pull out his fan and stab the man in the mouth. "I'm sure," he said through gritted teeth.

"Alrighty then. Battle Mages, encircle him. Let's get this party started."


End file.
